Leaf Modeling and Growth Process Simulation Using the Level Set Method

This paper presents a simulation of the growth process of leaves for computer graphics, visualization, and virtual reality applications. The following two-stage simulation is presented in this paper. First, a reference image is used to guide the early stage growth of the leaf; second, a growth function was created based on several vector fields controlled by a generalized logistic function. This growth function allows the leaf growth to continue beyond the information provided by the reference image. The core of both stages is the use of the level set method to extract and evolve the leaf shape. The proposed method facilitates the creation of frequently needed objects in an easy and flexible way that releases the user, usually an animator, from the burden of animating a leaf, which is usually a background object in a scene. We present several results from our experiments using various growth parameters and different leaves to showcase the advantages of using our method.