---

  

() Automated structures from basic primitives

The timber palisade and wall-walk surrounding the bailey and motte lend themselves to automated construction since they consist of a repetitive sequence of timber uprights (see Figure ()). Information about the topography is held in an XYZ co-ordinate file and used to locate the palisade posts correctly in relation to the ground surface. The timbers between the main uprights are then filled in by 'walking' from post to post, filling in the spaces between. Basic box and cylinder primitives are used for the structural elements, with the only parameters other than the XYZ co-ordinates being the physical dimensions of the timbers.

Figure (): Wire frame CAD model of palisade

A variant of this approach was used in the construction of the bridge (Figure ()). Here, a profile was generated between the two endpoints of the bridge which, together with a direction vector, was used to extrude the profile across the ditch. A series of direction vectors are similarly used to construct the bridge supports.

Figure (): Wire frame CAD model of bridge

©Internet Archaeology
Last updated: Mon 19 June 2000

URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue8/huggett/jhproc1.html