Efficient, realistic method for animating dynamic behaviors of 3D botanical trees

This paper proposes a new efficient method that can animate botanical trees in 3D realistically. In this paper, a 3D botanical tree model consists of a set of branch segments, to which leaf models are attached. To reduce the amount of computation, instead of calculating the motions of all the branch segments, only the representative segment in each branch is numerically analyzed. The numerical analysis is constrained to a 2D plane so that 3D numerical analysis need not be performed. Concerning the leaf model, a set of four leaves is systematically attached to each branch segment. Experimental results clarify the conditions for real-time, realistic animations of dynamic behaviors of trees.