Design Nomenclature / Digital Model Making
Procedural Modeling
Also called node-based modeling, rule-based modeling, generative modeling
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
Generating geometry from rules — a graph, a script, a grammar — rather than placing it. The output is a function of its inputs, so changing a seed or a count regenerates the whole model. Suits variation and repetition; poor for a one-off form, where writing the rule outlasts modeling the thing.
In practice
Node-based tools made “procedural” a synonym for “in a graph”. A parametric CAD tree is procedural by any definition, and nobody calls it that.
Not to be confused with
- Generative DesignAn optimizer proposes geometry against stated goals and constraints — loads, keep-outs, mass, manufacturing method — and returns candidates to choose among. In CAD practice this is topology optimization wrapped in a search over the setup, not a system that invents form. The designer's judgment moves upstream, into stating the problem.
- Parametric ModelingA model recorded as an ordered sequence of operations bound to editable parameters and to references on earlier geometry. Change a dimension and the tree replays. The power and the fragility are one thing: a reference to a face that a later edit renames or deletes breaks the rebuild.