Joshua Taylor and Ian Parberry, "Randomness + Structure = Clutter: A Procedural Object Placement Generator Using Petri Nets", Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Entertainment Computing, pp. 424-427, Vancouver, Canada, October 2011.
Abstract
Clutter is the random yet structured placement of objects in a room. We describe a procedural clutter generator that achieves believable, varied, and controllable object placement using a hierarchical colored Petri net capable of expressing any computable set of object placement constraints.