Settlements generating system (SGS): research on self-adapting method of rural settlement planning

In the face of large-scale construction of new rural settlements & villages in China, it is very urgent to provide highly efficient and intelligent computer aided methods of planning and designing settlements & villages in rural areas in order to effectively protect the rural cultures and landscapes. Our research includes two sections: learning and simulation. In the learning section, the topological structure model and traditional "culture genes" which control the growth of the settlements are extracted from settlements & villages under study. In the simulation section, the SGS system is used to simulate the emergence and expansion of settlements & villages, utilizing the achievements of the learning section. The SGS system includes five main parts: site selection, expansion, house generation, road network generation, land parcel and building generation. (1) Site selection. Through comprehensive analyses of geographical environments, system selects possible village areas, then, in combination with the traditional “Fengshui” concept to evaluate the selected areas and to determine the location of the initial village area. (2) Expansion. Around the center of the initial village area, system selects the expansion area of the village in a way that follows the traditional topological structure to form clustered settlements progressively. (3) House generation. System conducts a comprehensive assessment of all possible locations in the village area, while a number of "cultural genes" acts as influencing factors, locations with the highest evaluation parameters will be picked as the locations of the houses. The house generation process is a dynamic update process. When a new house is generated, according to the "cultural genes", its relationship with existing neighbors will be evaluated, produces an overall layout that conforms to the topological pattern of the traditional settlements. (4) Road network generation. Every time a house is generated, related roads are generated accordingly to establish the connection between the house and the external roads. With the increase of houses, the roads will gradually form a network. The road generation algorithm is based on the A* pathfinding algorithm, adding influencing factors such as bridges, slopes, curvatures, etc. to simulate the road network of local traditional settlements. (5) Land parcel and model generation. In traditional settlements, each building occupies a piece of land parcel around it as its courtyard or drying space. In the land parcel generation process, system will evaluate factors such as surrounding buildings, roads and terrain slope, generate land parcels follows the traditional customs and natural laws. In this part, system will also create an architectural model for each house from our model base. Encouragingly, our SGS system has successfully reproduced the layout and expansion manner of the existing traditional villages under study, featured with the local cultural customs, community structures, spatial characteristics and other intangible cultural heritages of the rural settlements. We expect that our SGS system provide an efficient tool for rural-urbanization in China to protect the rural cultures and landscapes effectively.