Image-based modeling of plants and trees

• Main Author: Kang, Sing Bing.
• Other Authors: Quan, Long.
• Format: Electronic
• Language: English
• Published: San Rafael, Calif. (1537 Fourth Street, San Rafael, CA 94901 USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, c2010.
• Series: Synthesis lectures on computer vision (Online) ; # 1.
• Subjects: Image processing > Digital techniques.; Computer drawing > Special effects.; Botanical illustration > Computer programs.; Botany > Computer simulation.; Trees > Computer simulation.; Plants > Computer simulation.
• Online Access: Abstract with links to full text
• Item Description: Part of: Synthesis digital library of engineering and computer science.; Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on November 4, 2009).; Series from website.
• Physical Description: 1 electronic text (x, 73 p. : ill.) : digital file.; Also available in print.
• Format: Mode of access: World Wide Web.; System requirements: Adobe Acrobat reader.
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-72).
• ISBN: 9781608452453 (electronic bk.)
• Access: Abstract freely available; full-text restricted to subscribers or individual document purchasers.

Plants and trees are among the most complex natural objects. Much work has been done attempting to model them, with varying degrees of success. In this book, we review the various approaches in computer graphics, which we categorize as rule-based, image-based, and sketch-based methods. We describe our approaches for modeling plants and trees using images. Image-based approaches have the distinct advantage that the resulting model inherits the realistic shape and complexity of a real plant or tree. We use different techniques for modeling plants (with relatively large leaves) and trees (with relatively small leaves). With plants, we model each leaf from images, while for trees, the leaves are only approximated due to their small size and large number. Both techniques start with the same initial step of structure from motion on multiple images of the plant or tree that is to be modeled.