Approach to Modeling and Virtual-reality-based Simulation for Plant Canopy Lighting

Over the past 20 years, significant progress has been made in virtual plant modeling corresponding to the rapid advances in information technology. Virtual plant research has broad applications in agronomy, forestry, ecology and remote sensing. As many biological processes are driven by light, it is the key for virtual plant to estimate the light absorbed by each organ. This paper presents the radiance equation suitable for calculating sun and sky light intercepted by plant organs based on the principles of the interaction between light and plant canopy firstly; analyzes the process principles of plant canopy primary lighting based on ray casting and projection secondly; describes the multiple scattering of plant lighting based on Monte Carlo ray tracing method and on the radiosity method thirdly; and confirms the research with 3D visualization based on Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) finally. The research is the primary work of digital agriculture, and important for monitoring and estimating corn growth in Northeast China.