GroIMP as a platform for functional-structural modelling of plants

The concept of relational growth grammars (RGG) is a recent effort to address the needs of functional-structural plant modelling. The programming language XL is the first language that implements this concept; it is made available for plant modelling as part of the modelling platform GroIMP. In this paper, an introduction to relational growth grammars and XL will be given using simple but instructive examples. It will be shown how the proven formalism of L-systems is integrated seamlessly into RGG/XL, which new modelling possibilities are provided, and how some standard tasks of modelling can be implemented in XL. Moreover, the examples will demonstrate some of GroIMP’s 3D-geometric objects and algorithms that are useful for functional-structural plant modelling