Environmental framework to visualize emergent artificial forest ecosystems

We propose an environmental framework for simulation and visualization of woody plant forests. A complex application software system develops and animates a spontaneous afforestation process within this environment. The system considers several environmental properties and combines computer animation with artificial life. The main goal of the presented software system is to use it in computer animation for synthesis of natural environments and visual analysis of their natural look credibility. The afforestation process is modeled as an ecosystem simulation, where trees struggle for survival based on several growth factors. A detailed description of the procedures for simulating tree growth and the factors that might influence tree growth is provided. All the tree growth simulation procedures and factors are biologically inspired. They have been defined mathematically in the paper by designing a bottom-up agent model which emerges the artificial tree distribution by mediating to the simulation. A flexible and adaptable procedural 3D model is used to visualize trees. Also, growth of individual trees is animated, from development of branch complexity to per-leaf precision, which allows a very realistic perception of the emerging ecosystem. The visualization of trees is sped up so that the models of trees have progressively lower-details proportional to the distance from a certain point of view. Locations and maturity of visualized trees are obtained from the ecosystem simulation results, and the afforestation process is animated over several centuries. The natural look of the artificial tree distribution is confirmed visually and statistically. Visually, it is confirmed from rendered sequences, and statistically, from graphs of tree species populations. Several patterns emerge permanently, such as the number of trees in the ecosystem simulation increasing exponentially and trees growing in communities. 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.