Generating Stable Building Block Structures From Sketches

Matthew Stephenson, Jochen Renz, Xiaoyu Ge, Peng Zhang

Abstract: This paper presents a structure generation algorithm, which converts rough human drawings into stable structures comprising rectangular blocks, suitable for physics-based 2-D environments. Generating viable structures for a physics-based environment imposes many additional requirements above those of most traditional sketch-based domains. Our method is sophisticated enough to deal with these requirements, while still ensuring that the generated structure accurately represents the original sketch. We describe and implement a framework for this process, allowing inexperienced users to create complex structures with ease. Multiple structure possibilities are identified for a single drawing and are then compared based on their similarity to the original sketch using a heuristic value. We evaluate our approach by investigating its ability to replicate structures for the video game Angry Birds, based on human drawn sketches of the original levels.