Study: Contour Lines
2026 · 7×7 in · 0.5 mm pen
The noise field is treated as a height map. We draw the level sets — the curves where the noise value crosses a threshold (0.1, 0.2, 0.3…). These are called isolines.
Computed via marching squares: each cell of a fine grid is checked for threshold crossings, and crossing points on cell edges are connected with line segments.
Multiple noise octaves (fBm) are layered at increasing frequencies and decreasing amplitudes — each adds finer terrain detail. More octaves = more crinkled, fractal contours.
Key variables: noiseScale (broad hills vs. crinkled terrain), levels (number of contour bands), octaves (1 = smooth, 4 = fractal detail).