ENG + TECH written by JYOTIKA PRASAD
Five Minute Trees
Have you tried to draw a tree
recently? For many of us, such efforts
usually result in a collection of ragged
curves sprouting from two straight lines.
Now, using innovative software developed
by the Stanford Virtual Worlds Group, it
is possible to design a realistic, three-
dimensional tree in less time than it will take
you to read this article.
Dryad is the initial result of an endeavor to
improve computer modeling of real world
objects, a process otherwise known as
3D content creation. “In traditional design
techniques you have to model things from
scratch,” says Dr. Vladlen Koltun, Assistant
Professor of Computer Science at Stanford
and head of the Stanford Virtual Worlds
Group. With current tools, modeling
a natural-looking tree would require
“spending a day learning and another day
modeling.” In contrast, Dryad employs “an
intuitive approach to 3D modeling” that lets
a novice user create a tree in less than five
minutes.
Collaborative Mapping
of Parametric Design
Spaces
Dryad is a prototype for a new design
technique called Collaborative Mapping
of Parametric Design Spaces. “Parametric
design space” refers to a class of real
objects that can be approximated virtually
using a single set of numbers. A tree can
be specified by its height, trunk thickness,
number of branches, distribution of leaves,
42 stanford scientific
Modeling 3D Content in Minutes
and other similar parameters. Each point in
this space corresponds to a particular choice
of values for the parameters and represents
a unique object.
Dryad uses this parametric design space
to model trees. It presents the user with
a two-dimensional map of the tree space
which can be navigated using an interface
similar to that of Google Maps. The map
represents a subset of the potential trees
that can be modeled, with trees in the same
“neighborhood” having similar values for
their parameters.
As for Dryad’s creative aspects, given a
particular tree, the user can produce a
similar yet distinct tree simply by tweaking
its parameters. Alternatively, the empty
space between two trees can be selected
to interpolate between them and create
a hybrid of the two. Combining a tall tree
and a short tree would generate a tree of
medium height, resulting in a traceable
progression of parameters from one
extreme to the other.
Challenges in Design
and Development
While this may seem simple conceptually,
developing the software has presented
some serious challenges. Although they are
presented as points on a two-dimensional
map, trees in Dryad are actually specified
using 98 parameters. “The geometry of
your average tree is so detailed, and you
are literally getting a tree every-time you
move a pixel. The geometry is completely
changing. [It was hard] just dealing with
the technical implications of hundreds of
thousands of polygons constantly changing
whenever you moved your mouse,”
explains Daniel Gibson, a junior majoring in
Computer Science who worked on Dryad.
Even once the software was developed,
“figuring out how to provide the user a way
to navigate through the many-dimensional
space was a really hard problem,” says
Koltun. Although the aim of the software
is to create trees, in fact very little of the
tree space contains points that resemble
anything close to a tree. A point picked at
random from this space will more often
appear like a spiky mutated blob.
In order to provide the user with actual trees
as a design basis, “collaborative mapping”
allows the software to connect to a central
server and thereby learn about every tree
that has been created by other users. Dryad
samples points from this space with a bias
towards areas surrounding points already
chosen by users, and thus presumed to
contain trees, ensuring that the initial map
presents reasonable looking trees. Finally,
when the user creates and saves a new
tree, it is uploaded to the server to aid
future exploration of the space. Users all
over the world collaborate in charting out
a guidebook for the tree space. As more
people use the software, it becomes more
and more refined.

“I think the most exciting part for me is how broadly applicable
this is. The prototype we have just enables tree creation, but now
what we are working on is opening it up to any design space at all.
We are on the verge of creating a much more exciting and broadly
applicable tool.” - Daniel Gibson
The Future of Dryad
Since Dryad was initially launched in
December 2007, over 13,000 people have
downloaded the software. “[The user
response] confirmed our notions to a degree
that surprised us. Users created these
beautiful trees that we didn’t know existed
in our design space,” says Koltun. “My
friend’s three year-old cousin was modeling
trees,” says Jerry Talton, one of Koltun’s PhD
students and a member of the Dryad team.
Since parametric spaces are ubiquitous,
the design principles behind Dryad can
be applied to many real-world objects. As
Gibson states, “I think the most exciting
part for me is how broadly applicable this
is. The prototype we have just enables tree
creation, but now what we are working on is
opening it up to any design space at all. We
are on the verge of creating a much more
exciting and broadly applicable tool.”
“[The idea can be used for] anything that is
drawn from a parametrizable domain, such
as faces, buildings, other kinds of vegetation
and automobiles,” reveals Koltun. “Maybe
there’s a parametrizable model for body
languages...to tell my avatar how I want it to
move,” adds Talton.
Credit: Stanford Virtual Worlds Group
Other objects could involve more
parameters than trees, but Koltun believes
that the technique will scale to more
dimensions. “If anything had to break in
our dimensionality reduction process, it
would’ve broken already. One hundred
dimensions is already beyond the ‘easy’
threshold.”
Dryad and its future incarnations could help A small sample of the variety of designs
address a sore point for most users of virtual achievable with Dryad.
worlds and other graphics environments. 3D
modeling still remains an esoteric domain,
depending largely on trained professionals
and complex software. Dryad challenges
these constraints by facilitating rich 3D
Credit: Stanford Virtual Worlds Group
content creation by lay users, allowing a
much wider and more democratized range
of expression. Says Koltun, this “enables
creativity of a sort that just doesn’t exist
today”.
JYOTIKA PRASAD is a masters’ student in Computer Science. Aside from writing, she
also likes dance, theater and information retrieval.
To Learn More
For more information, visit the Dryad website at http://dryad.stanford.edu
volume VII 43