Visualizing Botanical Trees over Four Seasons

Visualizing the growth process of botanical trees over the spring, summer, fall and winter seasons along with the natural effects of wind, ice and rain on the trees can be a useful tool for scientific research or even artistic display. This paper presents a method for visualizing the growth process of different botanical tree species over the four seasons of a year. The proposed method uses a data model to store a random three-dimensional tree and quickly render it using interactive 3D real-time animation. The tree model contains operations to sprout leaves and grow in the spring and summer, and to change the color of the leaves in the fall, which eventually fall off for the winter. This process can then be repeated interactively to show the full life cycle of a botanical tree. The extension of the system to realistically handle natural weather effects will also be outlined. Tree growth is based on a set of stochastic parameters that can be modified to produce different tree species. Results show efficient real-time animations of realistic looking random botanical trees.