Procedural multiresolution for plant and tree rendering

Modeling and rendering of plants and trees requires generating and processing large numbers of polygons. Geometry simplification methods may be used to reduce the polygon count and obtain a multiresolution representation. However, those methods fail to preserve the visual structure of a tree. We propose a different approach: procedural multiresolution. We build procedural models that reflect a tree's visual structure at different resolution levels. The models are based on parametric L-systems. Our method takes a parametric chain representing a tree and generates a new chain with embedded multiresolution information. The algorithm is based on a metric that quantifies the relevance of the branches of a tree. The representation supports efficient geometry extraction and produces good visual results.