Animation of L-system based 3-D Plant Growing in Java

Tong Lin

A paper submitted to the
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
CMSC-693 Research and Writing Skills
at the University of Maryland Baltimore County

November 19, 1996

CMSC-693 Advisory Committee:

David S. Ebert (Advisor), Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Charles Abzug (Reader), Instructor in Computer Science

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Animation of L-system based 3-D Plant Growing in Java

Tong Lin
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Baltimore, Maryland 21250

November 19, 1996

Abstract:

To simulate on a computer screen the growing of plants, two factors have to be considered - the development rules that control the growth, and the geometric interpretations of such rules. In this project, three-dimensional animation software has been implemented in Java and has been made accessible via a net browser as a Java applet. The system is based on one of the most famous development models - the Lindenmayer system(L-system). The software generates fast, smooth, and beautiful plant growing animations based on both stochastic and context-sensitive L-systems. It also demonstrates clearly the power of L-systems in the animation of virtual plant growing. From the artistic point of view, we also see that the beauty of natural scenes is principally a reflection of the underlying mathematical systems that control their development, simplicity and self-similarity .

Keywords. L-systems, grammar, plants, turtle, animation, Java, rendering

Tong Lin, Animation of L-system based 3-D Plant Growing: November 19, 1996

 
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction
  • L-systems
  • Turtle Interpretation
  • Related Works
  • Goal
• Methods
  • Language Issues
  • System Structure
  • Implementation of Advanced L-systems
  • Geometry
  • Rendering
  • Animation
• Results
  • Simple L-systems
  • Context-sensitive L-systems
  • Stochastic L-systems
• Discussion
• Summary
• References
• List of Source Code
• Source Code
• About this document ...