SIMULATION ON LONGAN TREE MORPHOLOGY AND GROWTH BASED ON L-SYSTEMS

Longan is subtropical fruit of the Sapindaceae family. The potential for higher profit brings about an upsurge of studies to improve the yield of longan. In order to shorten the test cycle and obtain valuable insights into the nature of longan, it is necessary to construct virtual longan tree models which are in accordance with natural growth law. Taking intricate branches structure of longan tree into account, a classical method of modeling the trees based on the theory of Lindenmayer systems (L-Systems) primarily serves as platforms for reconstructing the architecture of longan tree. The great drawback of the traditional tree modeling methods is neglecting biological meaning and the actual development and growth process. Therefore, the primary technical contribution of the paper is integrating surveying data and botanical features of longan tree into L-Systems by the parametrical modus for achieving the actual growth process. Besides, the stochastic mechanism is considered to modify the details of branches in order to reflect the differences between trees. Furthermore, three-dimensional visualization technology is primarily responsible for livingly representing models of longan tree. A tree designer based on L-Systems (LSTD) has been developed to confirm the validity of the method above. The growth models of longan tree in different periods are really simulated. The experimental results are very encouraging and convincing.