VTP Vegetation
The VTP software provides a framework for working with vegetation.
Terminology
- An appearance is an representation of how a plant looks, which
can be an image or a model.
- A species consists of a scientific name, any number of common
names, and any number of appearances.
- A species list is a list of species.
- A plant instance is a specific specimen of a plant, in the real
world.
- A plant density is a representation of how densely a plant is
distributed, consisting of a reference to a species and a density, in
instances per square meter.
- A biotype is like a ecological type classification. It consists
of any number of plant densities, which together describe how many
species are found in a certain area, and the density of each. For example,
"Hawaiian Mid-Elevation Rainforest" would be a biotype.
- A bioregion is a set of all the biotypes found in a given
region. For example, the California bioregion contains biotypes
for coastal wetlands, temperate rainforest, dry grasslands, alpine forest,
etc.
Each of these concepts is implemented in the VTP libraries with a C++ class,
developers please see Vegetation Classes.
Storage
- A species list can be saved and loaded from a XML file with this
simple format.
- A bioregion, including each biotype description, can be
saved and loaded from a text file, which looks like
this. It is a simple list of biotypes, each composed of a number of
species (by common name) and a density (in plants per square meter).
- The customary place for these files is in the directory
"Data/PlantData"
, which is where they are by default in the VTP
distribution.
- It is hopefully straightforward to see how to add your own vegetation
description to these files.
- A set of plant instances can be saved and loaded from a format
called
VF, "vegetation file".
Processing vegetation data
- See the VTBuilder documentation for how to process raw
distribution data (e.g. LULC, SHP)
into a VF file. The
VF format is documented if you want to create it yourself without using
VTBuilder.
- Next, copy the file (.vf file extension) into the directory
"Data/PlantData"
- Select it in the Enviro Terrain Parameters dialog
Defining new species
- Create or extend the species.xml file. It is in a very simple,
self-explanatory format.
- The plant appearances should be placed in the directory
"Data/PlantModels"
Plant Library
- The VTP distribution includes a
plant library with
images and descriptions.