Thread:LOTRMod/@comment-26254192-20151229031022/@comment-26172435-20151229071718

Sinthoniel wrote: @Mevans Do you really need simple plots? Look here. The way you describe it, you have a very similar problem: To create a map of data from the absolute coordinates of each point. The solutions show that basically everything is possible, even with very short code. Annatar, thx for asking this. Mevans, thx for answering. The asnwer is what I expected and it's good that the community knows.

On the method:

Basically the functional need is to generate a predefined 3D structure in a 3D area that may or may not yet contain blocks that can or cannot be changed. This can be broken down easily in a procedure Mevans already used for the generation of the Ring of Isengard. Dependent on the size of the structure to be placed, I can imagine part of that procedure may be skipped, as it will be beneficial to not plot huge structures on top of an already generated surface, but include the sub-surface structure in the structure template itself instead and then upon generation, just plot it where you need it. For large structures this would imply that you need to define a core structure, which includes the subsurface volume, with a simplified constitution (like 'only stone of one type') to reduce file sizes and generation time. The rest of the large structures would preferably be superimposed on the pregenerated biome surface and will require the check as described by Mevans. Finally, the key to easy/fast predefined structure deployment/generation is in a type of method Sinthoniel pointed out: how to effectively reduce the description of the predefined structure and deduce the structure from its reduced description. I'm sure there are readily available techniques for this, developed by the game industry and the science of computational modeling for real-life systems (for mechanics, physics and process industries). What is basically requires is a method on how to 'deflate and inflate' large sturctures. The key is in the way to define a larger sturcture that holds multiple type of blocks (block entities,item  IDs) as an assembly of bigger units comprised of one type of block or of a number of block types that are distributed randomly over the volume the bigger units hold. This is principally the same method as described in the link Sinthoniel shared. To comprehend this, I think its easiest to imagine how one would try to re-produce a large build with a minimum amount of worldedit commands: instead of building a structure one block at a time, build it with large cubes, walls and other volumetric shapes of defined composition.

Now it may be a matter of finding the right 'compression and decompression' method for minecraft 3D models. Once that is available (and maybe it already is) ... the structure building and functional coding can meaningfully start.

Mevans, do you have all required methods in place already, or is there a development or search ongoing that needs to be completed to help you in getting the right methods in place for the intended functionality?