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Interactive synthesis of self-organizing tree models on the GPU

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Abstract

Real-time synthesis of realistic tree models is a desirable functionality for computer games, simulators, and landscape design software. Self-organizing tree models that adapt to the environment are a welcome addition and central to various 3D design tools but present a challenging task for interactive use even on modern commodity hardware. The paper describes the implementation of a complete self-organizing tree synthesis method running on a contemporary graphics processing unit using OpenCL. We demonstrate that generation and display of tree-populated scenes with shadows at interactive rates can be achieved by utilizing the massively parallel GPU architecture to accelerate the computationally intensive steps of the method. A comparison with the performance of single-threaded and CPU-based OpenCL implementation of the same method is reported.

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  1. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor, Smetanova ulica 17, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia

    Štefan Kohek & Damjan Strnad

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  1. Štefan Kohek
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  2. Damjan Strnad
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Correspondence to Štefan Kohek.

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Kohek, Š., Strnad, D. Interactive synthesis of self-organizing tree models on the GPU. Computing 97, 145–169 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00607-014-0424-7

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