Another Plant Modeling App

Started by j meyer, June 24, 2013, 11:35:00 AM

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j meyer

Just came across a link to this and thought some of you might be interested.
http://algorithmicbotany.org/virtual_laboratory/
Seems to be for the mathematically oriented
http://algorithmicbotany.org/lstudio/whatis.html

AP

Yes, i tried that software last night. It went right over my head. I had no idea what i was doing.

efflux

#2
Has anyone been able to try that ios app? That looks amazing. It it possible to run ios apps on OSX. You need the software to do it. I haven't tried yet. I've tried the vlab on Linux and although I will be able to get it to work there are some problems finding libraries that I'll have to solve. I tried it on OSX but I don't think I'm seeing the whole app due to libraries needed. I was able to tweak some thing and see the results. It actually looks very powerful but user friendliness could be another question.

I've tried various tree methods. Arbaro is usable. Blender has a tree addon but it's not nearly as good as Arbaro. It does create an entire armature to animate the trees but too much hassle.

Another way to go is using particle systems. I haven't tried this yet but in Modo there is a potential way because you can effect particle systems with mesh and you can interactively sculpt the particle systems via this mesh. In theory it should be possible to quickly build a tree and have leaves as particles that can be easily edited by sculpting the branches with a brush.

As for Plant Factory, I think that's a total rip off. There are ways and means in other apps to do things. It's just a question of finding the best app and method. It will involve some kind of particle system or arraying. Tree Factory will be almost in the same price league as high end apps like Modo. That's utterly ludicrous and E-on are a joke. There's no way I'd buy software from that company.

efflux

#3
Also, I'm pretty convinced that Modo beats Vue hands down now for landscape stuff. 701 can deal with extremely large scenes and has various ways to do things via particles, arrays and physics. The renderer is vastly superior to Vue's. You can do clouds as well. The problem is mesh content. I'm not so keen on Modo for creating that. It's creatively weak so other apps are needed. Blender and Wings are good. Small plants will be a piece of cake. It's big trees with thousands of leaves that gets more difficult.

efflux

Here's some trees from that TreeSketch:

http://forums.luxology.com/topic.aspx?f=4&t=65719

The trees in this were done with TreeSketch. Ha ha, Plant Factory, what a joke:

http://vimeo.com/38591304


TheBadger

So according to that link, all the plants in this image are from the free soft mentioned above?
[attach=1]

Well that is rather nice looking. Going to have to look into this now! Not sure how its going to make me feel if its better than TPF as you suggest.
It has been eaten.

yossam

It was updated recently also.................wish I had an ipad.  ::)

TheBadger

Ahh, yeah. I don't have an I pad. I need to look at these programs that allow you to run smart apps on a desktop.
It has been eaten.

folder

I have an iPad and have started playing with the app. It is an amazing app. As a modeling beginner I have a lot to learn, but will try and make some trees to share

Folder

TheBadger

Folder, and everyone.
Please also share some screen pics and opinions on the modeler. Critiqu of qualtiy + ease of use. Thoughts on getting models from ipad to desk top...

Who knows, maybe this will be the best excuse I could ever find to buy an ipad (new or used). Because I still say, dang, its pretty.  ;)

No really, whats the real worth of this app? Please tell.
It has been eaten.

Dune

So there's no Treesketch for Windows? Too bad.

efflux

I haven't got around to this yet but can't you use ipad apps on OSX by installing Xcode? I was about to download it but I would have to use my Mini and not my Macbook since the mini is latest OSX.

I tried the other Vlab app on that page but the OSX version. That's tedious totally beyond usability but I've seen Linux screenshots that look a bit better. I still haven't tried to get it to work but I think is has more GUI. There is no usable mesh format output though. I got the general idea of how it builds the plants. The procedures behind all those apps on that site, including the ipad one, is obviously the same and it's brilliant. Totally tragic that the usable UI version is ipad only. Do they realise how fantastic that app is? Why the hell is it free? It actually seems to do the same basic thing as Plant Factory in terms of the geometry.

What's great about Treesketch is that you can totally shape the tree really easily so you could design it very well for a specific environment.

You want nice simple geometry with no branch beginnings showing (usually the geometry is cones) and you want to be able manipulate it by hand and have all the tropism editing etc. Textures aren't so important. You can sort that in another app but you want leaves to be handled in certain ways to later edit i.e. each leaf as a single UV for example. It looks to me like Treesketch does all that.

There is an ivy generator in Blender. I haven't tested it yet but it looks quite cool. It "grows" ivy around a mesh. Blender tree generator doesn't cut it though. Not even nearly as good as Arbaro. Arbaro is all that is good either free or cheap but Treesketch looks much better.

TheBadger

#13
Tree sketch tuts and papers: http://algorithmicbotany.org/TreeSketch/

Home: http://algorithmicbotany.org

this is why its free : "Welcome to Algorithmic Botany, the website of the Biological Modeling and Visualization research group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary."

Research
http://algorithmicbotany.org/research/

Paper: http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/TreeSketch.SBM2012.html
http://algorithmicbotany.org/papers/

Im going to write them and see what there plans for tree sketch are.
It has been eaten.

TheBadger

@Efflux

The IvyGen in blender is the same as the IvyGen discussed in depth in these forums.
It has been eaten.