A visualization system for rice plant modeling

Visualization and simulation of rice plant make great significances to the research of quantification of field evapotranspiration, design of plant type, and optimization of cultural practices. With regard to the status that the modeling of rice plant is still weak and lack of software tool to visually simulate the structures and growth process of rice plant, a powerful and convenient rice plant modeling system is developed with the integrated platform of Visual C++ 6.0 and OpenGL. To build this system, Parametric L-system is first used to simulate the topological structures of rice plant, and the visualization of leaf, branch, panicle are achieved by using common algorithm and object oriented design method. Finally, surface-rendering techniques in Computer Graphics are used to render the created shapes of rice plant at both organ and individual levels. The experiment results show that the developed system is doable and effective, and possesses a better future of application.