“Plastic trees: interactive self-adapting botanical tree models” by Pirk, Stava, Kratt, Said, Neubert, et al. …

We present a dynamic tree modeling and representation technique that allows complex tree models to interact with their environment. Our method uses changes in the light distribution and proximity to solid obstacles and other trees as approximations of biologically motivated transformations on a skeletal representation of the tree’s main branches and its procedurally generated foliage. Parts of the tree are transformed only when required, thus our approach is much faster than common algorithms such as Open L-Systems or space colonization methods. Input is a skeleton-based tree geometry that can be computed from common tree production systems or from reconstructed laser scanning models. Our approach enables content creators to directly interact with trees and to create visually convincing ecosystems interactively. We present different interaction types and evaluate our method by comparing our transformations to biologically based growth simulation techniques.

1. Aono, M., and Kunii, T. 1984. Botanical tree image generation. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 4(5), 10–34. Google ScholarDigital Library
2. Arvo, J., and Kirk, D. 1988. Modeling plants with environment-sensitive automata. In Proceedings of Ausgraph ’88, 27–33.Google Scholar
3. Benes, B., and Millán, E. 2002. Virtual climbing plants competing for space. In IEEE Proceedings of the Computer Animation 2002, IEEE Computer Society, N. Magnenat-Thalmann, Ed., 33–42. Google ScholarDigital Library
4. Benes, B., Andrysco, N., and Stava, O. 2009. Interactive modeling of virtual ecosystems. In Eurographics Workshop on Natural Phenomena, Eurographics Association, 9–16. Google ScholarDigital Library
5. Bloomenthal, J. 1985. Modeling the mighty maple. SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics 19, 3, 305–311. Google ScholarDigital Library
6. Boudon, F., Prusinkiewicz, P., Federl, P., Godin, C., and Karwowski, R. 2003. Interactive design of bonsai tree models. Computer Graphics Forum. Proceedings of Eurographics 22, 3, 591–599.Google ScholarCross Ref
7. Chen, X., Neubert, B., Xu, Y.-Q., Deussen, O., and Kang, S. B. 2008. Sketch-based tree modeling using markov random field. ACM Trans. Graph. 27, 5, 109–117. Google ScholarDigital Library
8. Cook, R. L., Halstead, J., Planck, M., and Ryu, D. 2007. Stochastic simplification of aggregate detail. ACM Trans. Graph. 26, 3, 79. Google ScholarDigital Library
9. de Reffye, P., Edelin, C., Françon, J., Jaeger, M., and Puech, C. 1988. Plant models faithful to botanical structure and development. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ’88, 151–158. Google ScholarDigital Library
10. Deussen, O., and Lintermann, B. 2005. Digital Design of Nature: Computer Generated Plants and Organics. Springer-Verlag New York, Inc. Google ScholarDigital Library
11. Ferraro, p., and Godin, C. 2000. A distance measure between plant architectures. Annals of Forest Science 57, 5/6, 445–461.Google ScholarCross Ref
12. Greene, N. 1989. Voxel space automata: modeling with stochastic growth processes in voxel space. SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics 23, 3, 175–184. Google ScholarDigital Library
13. Hart, J. C., Baker, B., and Michaelraj, J. 2003. Structural simulation of tree growth and response. The Visual Computer 19, 2-3, 151–163.Google ScholarCross Ref
14. Honda, H. 1971. Description of the form of trees by the parameters of the tree-like body: effects of the branching angle and the branch length on the shape of the tree-like body. Journal of Theoretical Biology 31, 331–338.Google ScholarCross Ref
15. Hua, J., and Kang, M. 2011. Functional tree models reacting to the environment. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2011 Posters, ACM, New York, NY, USA, SIGGRAPH ’11, 60:1–60:1. Google ScholarDigital Library
16. Ijiri, T., Owada, S., and Igarashi, T. 2006. The sketch L-System: Global control of tree modeling using free-form strokes. Smart Graphics, 138–146.Google Scholar
17. Kawaguchi, Y. 1982. A morphological study of the form of nature. In SIGGRAPH ’82: Proceedings of the 9th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 223–232. Google ScholarDigital Library
18. Lam, Z., and King, S. A. 2005. Simulating tree growth based on internal and environmental factors. In Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australasia and South East Asia, ACM, New York, NY, USA, GRAPHITE ’05, 99–107. Google ScholarDigital Library
19. Lindenmayer, A. 1968. Mathematical models for cellular interaction in development. Journal of Theoretical Biology Parts I and II, 18, 280–315.Google ScholarCross Ref
20. Lintermann, B., and Deussen, O. 1999. Interactive modeling of plants. IEEE Comput. Graph. 19, 1, 56–65. Google ScholarDigital Library
21. Livny, Y., Pirk, S., Cheng, Z., Yan, F., Deussen, O., Cohen-Or, D., and Chen, B. 2011. Texture-lobes for tree modelling. ACM Trans. Graph. 30 (August), 53:1–53:10. Google ScholarDigital Library
22. Měch, R., and Prusinkiewicz, P. 1996. Visual models of plants interacting with their environment. In Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, SIGGRAPH ’96, 397–410. Google ScholarDigital Library
23. Neubert, B., Franken, T., and Deussen, O. 2007. Approximate image-based tree-modeling using particle flows. ACM Trans. Graph. 26, 3, Article 71, 8 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
24. Okabe, M., Owada, S., and Igarashi, T. 2006. Interactive design of botanical trees using freehand sketches and example-based editing. Comput. Graph. Forum 24, 3, 487–496.Google ScholarCross Ref
25. Oppenheimer, P. E. 1986. Real time design and animation of fractal plants and trees. SIGGRAPH Comput. Graph. 20, 4, 55–64. Google ScholarDigital Library
26. Palubicki, W., Horel, K., Longay, S., Runions, A., Lane, B., Měch, R., and Prusinkiewicz, P. 2009. Self-organizing tree models for image synthesis. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ’09, 1–10. Google ScholarDigital Library
27. Power, J. L., Brush, A. J. B., Prusinkiewicz, P., and Salesin, D. H. 1999. Interactive arrangement of botanical 1-system models. In Proceedings of the 1999 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics, ACM Press, 175–182. Google ScholarDigital Library
28. Prusinkiewicz, P., Hammel, M. S., and Mjolsness, E. 1993. Animation of plant development. In SIGGRAPH ’93: Proceedings of the 20th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 351–360. Google ScholarDigital Library
29. Prusinkiewicz, P., Mündermann, L., Karwowski, R., and Lane, B. 2001. The use of positional information in the modeling of plants. In SIGGRAPH ’01, 289–300. Google ScholarDigital Library
30. Prusinkiewicz, P. 1986. Graphical applications of 1-systems. In Proceedings on Graphics Interface ’86/Vision Interface ’86, 247–253. Google ScholarDigital Library
31. Reche-Martinez, A., Martin, I., and Drettakis, G. 2004. Volumetric reconstruction and interactive rendering of trees from photographs. ACM Trans. Graph. 23, 3, 720–727. Google ScholarDigital Library
32. Rudnick, S., Linsen, L., and Mcpherson, E. G. 2007. Inverse modeling and animation of growing single-stemmed trees at interactive rates. In in The 15th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision 2007, 2007, 217–224.Google Scholar
33. Runions, A., Lane, B., and Prusinkiewicz, P. 2007. Modeling trees with a space colonization algorithm. In Proceedings of Eurographics Workshop on Natural Phenomena 2007, 63–70. Google ScholarDigital Library
34. Sachs, T., and Novoplansky, A. 1995. Tree from: Architectural models do not suffice. Israel Journal of Plant Sciences 43, 203–212.Google ScholarCross Ref
35. Smith, A. R. 1984. Plants, fractals, and formal languages. In SIGGRAPH ’84: Proceedings of the 11th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 1–10. Google ScholarDigital Library
36. Soler, C., Sillion, F. X., Blaise, F., and Dereffye, P. 2003. An efficient instantiation algorithm for simulating radiant energy transfer in plant models. ACM Trans. Graph. 22, 2, 204–233. Google ScholarDigital Library
37. Weber, J., and Penn, J. 1995. Creation and rendering of realistic trees. In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH ’95, 119–128. Google ScholarDigital Library
38. Zakaria M., N., and Shukri, S. 2007. A sketch-and-spray interface for modeling trees. 23–35. Google ScholarDigital Library
39. Zhang, K. 1996. A constrained edit distance between unordered labeled trees. Algorithmica 15, 3, 205–222.Google ScholarDigital Library