Computer Scientists Grow a Better Virtual Tree

Reservoir Hill points us to a story about a group of computer scientists who are taking steps to bring the creation of 3-D worlds to the casual user. As a proof-of-concept, Vladlen Koltun and the Stanford Virtual Worlds Group, using data collected by botanists, have developed software to create virtual 3-D trees with roughly 100 different tree attributes, all of which are highly variable. Quoting: "The inability of casual computer users to build 3-D objects - you practically have to be a sculptor, Koltun says - is an anchor holding back the promise of virtual worlds. Koltun's software, Dryad (a tree nymph in Greek mythology,) lets users move through the 100-attribute tree space in a fashion similar to navigating city streets on Google Maps. As in real life, not all trees are equally desirable. Since no single user is capable of mapping out the best parts of the enormous tree space, this mapping of desirability is done collaboratively, leading to continuous refinement of the software."

Already existed.

[Aladrin]

http://ngplant.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Plant generators have existed for a while. There was a proprietary one (that I forget the name of now) that was very good, and there's the above open source one as well. (Which I haven't actually used.)

As for making it easier for users to create virtual worlds... This is just one small aspect of a world, and doesn't even fully support that, from what I can see.

"Dryad trees are truly 3-D; they can be spun around or viewed from any angle. They also can be downloaded in the OBJ format and loaded into any major modeling program."

So it only creates a static OBJ. There's no animation, no information on how it flexes... You can't make this tree sway in the wind without the same tedious work that's always been necessary.

Saying this helps create virtual worlds is like a crayon manufacturer saying it helps create art... Sure, as long as you only want non-professional art. (And yes, just like crayons, you -can- make professional art with this if you have a ton of talent and are willing to put in the time.)

Re:I'm underwhelmed.

[chuckymonkey]

I think that the idea is to not have a standard library of ready made tree blocks to use over and over. What I do believe that they're getting at is "growing" trees based on the attributes that are put in. The more attributes that are in the system the more variety of trees can be randomly generated. They are also collecting data on the aesthetic appeal of the different combinations of attributes so that they can maybe make a system that will group pleasing ones together to further refine the process. That way you get trees in games that are random, "grown", and no weird combinations of say deciduous leaves on conifer type trees. It's still pretty new software and does't look all that great, but like any project give it some time and I think you may be surprised by the results.

Re:Doesn't run on Linux

[El_Muerte_TDS]

It doesn't run on Windows either. Tried two different machines, and on both the program kept crashing before I would even see a tree.

Similar stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar stuff:
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/fractals/dla3d/ [uwa.edu.au]

Re:Already existed.

[duck0]

Or the one that's been around for ages; xfrog [xfrog.org]

Blender Treemaker

[LetterRip]

As noted aobove, tools for creating trees are pretty common, ie Blender now has a fairly powerful treemaker that is being used for the Peach Open Movie,

http://peach.blender.org/index.php/trees/ [blender.org]

The author does mention that Dryad is 'easy to use', but there are a fair number of easy to use tree making tools already so not sure how 'revolutionary' it is.

LetterRip

Re:Already existed.

[szap]

There was a proprietary one (that I forget the name of now) that was very good

Speed Tree? [speedtree.com] It can generates trees real time [speedtree.com] based on predefined definition. With proper 3D lighting, it looks way better than Dryad. Mature product as well, being used in lots of games.

Re:I'm underwhelmed.

[Anonymous Coward]

It runs just fine on Windows. I made a bunch of trees but the problem with trees is not how hard or easy thy are to make the problem is there polygon hit they do to the game engine. That's the real problem of why you don't see many trees in games. The polygon amount on these trees is too high. That's the problem that needs to be solved. A tree that only takes up say 10 polygons but still looks believable would work. You don't get that here.

Sketchup

[rastoboy29]

Sketchup (now Google Sketchup) is actually a very intuitive 3d modeling tool--probably the most intuitive by far, IMHO, but it actually suffers from a lack of depth.  I'm waiting for Google to work their magic on it...still waiting, actually.

Did you RTFA?

[brunes69]

The point of this is you no longer have to be a 3D wiz or artist to make decent 3D objects - you just plug in their attributes and they generate themselves.

So say you are a great programmer but a totally lousy artist - now you can actually make that cool 3D game you have been envisioning by yourself.