Modeling dendritic structures for artistic effects

Abstract

Dendritic or branching structures are commonly seen in natural phenomena such as lightning, cracking and vegetal growth. They are also often used for artistic or decorative purposes, ranging from ornamentation to decorative ceramics. Existing procedural methods for modeling these structures remain very limited in terms of control and flexibility. As a result, these objects tend to be modeled individually, which is a painstaking and costly process.We present a new procedural method for modeling dendritic structures based on a path planning approach. Our method includes the implementation of a partial non-scalar distance metric that gives us effective and flexible control handles over the evolving dendritic structure. These control handles are demonstrated by guiding the growth of dendritic structures using input images, allowing us to create a form of stylistic dendritic halftoning and to embed hidden images in dendritic trees to create pareidolia effects. These applications demonstrate the vast diversity of structures that can easily be modeled by our process – a flexibility that existing methods definitely lack. We also demonstrate the application of the partial non-scalar distance metric to the context of texture synthesis from example, and show how it holds promise for many other contexts.