PlantCAD: An integrated graphic toolkit for modelling and analyzing plant structure

In this paper, we present PlantCAD, a graphic toolkit for the creation, simulation and analysis of 3D virtual plants. This C++-based geometric toolkit allows easy generation of plant organs including leaves, fruits, branches, petioles and even nonbotanical things which makes it a powerful user-interactive platform for plant modeling in various biological application. Based on the basic geometric components dedicated to different organs, PlantCAD provides several methods to create plant structure from either real measured data or procedural models. Realistic appearance of the generated 3D plants is improved by using texture mapping and including hairs that cover many plant organs. Several examples from different modelling applications illustrate how PlantCAD can be used to construct, analyse or manipulate geometric models at different scales ranging from organs to plant communities.