Computer Scientists Grow a Better Virtual Tree

Reservoir Hill points us to a story about a group of computer scientists who are taking steps to bring the creation of 3-D worlds to the casual user. As a proof-of-concept, Vladlen Koltun and the Stanford Virtual Worlds Group, using data collected by botanists, have developed software to create virtual 3-D trees with roughly 100 different tree attributes, all of which are highly variable. Quoting: "The inability of casual computer users to build 3-D objects - you practically have to be a sculptor, Koltun says - is an anchor holding back the promise of virtual worlds. Koltun's software, Dryad (a tree nymph in Greek mythology,) lets users move through the 100-attribute tree space in a fashion similar to navigating city streets on Google Maps. As in real life, not all trees are equally desirable. Since no single user is capable of mapping out the best parts of the enormous tree space, this mapping of desirability is done collaboratively, leading to continuous refinement of the software."

Comments

Obligory

[daalbert]

In Soviet Russia Virtual Tree grow better Computer Scientists.

Computer scientists don't understand "infinity"

[91degrees]

Infinity does not mean > FLT_MAX. There are a finite number of trees a system with finite resources can generate. If you want an infinite number of possible trees then create an implementation for a universal Turing machine.

Re:Doesn't run on Linux

[zippthorne]

Sounds like they're not real clear on how windows works anymore either. They don't have "application data" (uh.. .dirs?) directories in every user's "documents and settings" (home, really) just for giggles.

Now they DO handle "documents and settings" stupidly (in XP. I'll try vista when I have a computer that can run it). What do you mean it's not advisable to mount a separate /home drive? Brilliant idea putting the mount-point information in the documents and settings tree. That way, segregating user data from operating system data is not trivially easy, thus making the "reinstall windows from scratch" when you get into trouble trick far less simple.