Procedural techniques for simulating the growth of plant leaves and adapting venation patterns

This paper presents biologically-motivated a procedural method for the simulation of leaf contour growth and venation development. We use a mathematical model for simulating the growth of a plant leaf. Leaf tissue is regarded as a viscous, incompressible fluid whose 2D expansion is determined by a spatially varying growth rate. Visually realistic development is described by a growth function RERG that reacts to hormone (auxin) sources embedded in the leaf blade. The shape of the leaf is determined by a set of feature points within the leaf contour. The contour is extracted from photos by utilizing a Curvature Scale Space (CSS) Corner Detection Algorithm. Auxin transport is described by an initial auxin flux from an auxin source to an auxin sink that is gradually channelized into cells with high levels of highly polarized transporters. The leaf is presented as a triangulated double layer structure that consists of a Voronoi-Diagram that is discretised along the vein structures.publishe