Results Publications

Introduction

Building realistic models of plants is not a simple task. Such models generally have the following caracteristics:

Considering these requirements, three methods seem adapted for obtaining models of plants: scanning real plants, L-systems and simulation of plant growth.

Goal

   The aim of the SOLEIL project is to simulate the action of light energy on plant development. This is be done through the collaboration of a radiative exchange simulation program, called BRIGHT, and the plant growth simulator AMAP. Up to know, AMAP is based on the asumption that the amount of light energy received by each leaf is uniform on the entire plant. The new system uses the BRIGHT software to determine the exact amount of light received by each leaf in the plant, thus considering the orientation of the leaves and macro effects like self-shadowing. AMAP incorporates this lighting information to determine the production inside each leaf, thus modifying the geometry of the model. The figure below shows the process:

  Applying the radiosity method to the simulation of plant growth needs to solve some specific problems, like

This new functionnality opens the way to studying different phenomena, at various scales:

Related problems

This project involves a number of techniques usually used in image synthesis. Their application to large models of plants asks some interesting questions, because of the specific requirements of this kind of application: In conclusion, the application of hierarchical radiosity techniques to the simulation of plant growth is be a source of fruitful research in both domains.