Research and Development at Aeroplane

Project Goal:

Develop a procedural plant or tree in Unity that grows over time using resources like light or temperature.

Development Process:

Guided by "The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants", I utilized L-systems to simulate plant growth. This involved creating a custom node-based program in Aeroplane to manage plant aspects like girth, elasticity, and structure. The system allows for varied growth patterns based on resource availability, resulting in diverse plant appearances.

The growth of the same plant over time.

Plant growth variation based on energy availability.

The L-system's rules and random angles, combined with resource management, ensure each plant maintains a unique yet consistent appearance.

Conclusion and Future Directions:

The L-system effectively simulates diverse plant growth. Future enhancements could include a slider-based interface for easier manipulation of growth parameters like branching frequency and elasticity. The key learning was to extract relevant biological information to create a realistic yet manageable growth model.