Abstract

Methods developed by the computer graphics community allow for the photorealistic rendering of complex geometry. In this talk we explore how such mathematical procedures can be leveraged to describe the growth, biomechanics, and combustion of trees at a detailed spatial level. These models facilitate a realistic 3D visualization of these processes at forest scale which allows exploring illustratively a variety of hypothetical environmental scenarios. Potential applications of such methods include the educational dissemination of environmental concepts, the generation of synthetic image data for training vision-based AI models, and the evaluation of ecological hypotheses expressed at plant organ scale.

Bio: Wojtek Palubicki is a Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University where he leads the Natural Phenomena Modelling Group. The research group uses methods from computer graphics and AI to describe and investigate natural pattern genesis. Before that he held a post-doctoral research scientist post at the SLCU developing mathematical models of plant developmental biology.