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Home » Method |
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Method The plant modelling method presented here allows plant architecture to be described concisely, using existing concepts. This includes branching points, which are made available as reusable “building-blocks”. Biologists should feel comfortable with them, given they already use them in describing branching structures of plants (Hatta et al.; 1999). Others should be able to grasp the concept quite easily, given that they are simple and readily observable in nature. Equally important is the way in which the branching topology can be specified. For this, a type of graph has been proposed that allows the branching points to be linked together, along with other properties. Thus, this method enables realistic branching structures to be created and should appeal to a broader audience of modellers, in comparison to previous systems. In particular, it should appeal to non-experts. The method has been intentionally kept fairly abstract, only core data structures are defined in the thesis. Hence, this generality provides flexibility and extensibility in a similar way to that of L-systems and opens the door to discussion. Thus, the system design shall define the details of things such as what node objects and arc conditions are supported, along with the geometry building and branching point variation algorithms. The following diagram illustrates a branching point (or junction point), whose metrics may be measured from real plants.
The graph shown below depicts an example of topology for a plant. The nodes represent either branches or objects (e.g. leaves, flowers or fruit). Arcs represent the application of branching points that may form cycles and contain conditions (e.g. on the current diameter or growth of a branch).
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