3D Tree by Paolo Marcuccetti©2003-2018

1. Installation
2. General use
3. Troubleshooting
4. Settings and samples
5. Disclaimer
6. Download

• Open your Vectorworks® document together with the downloaded file "3D Tree scripts.vwx".
• While your document is frontmost, open the resources editor [cmd + R], choose the file "3D Tree scripts.vwx" and select the "script" panel. You should see a folder named 3D Tree scripts.
• Select this folder and import it into your document [right mouse click + import].
• You should have a panel called TREE v.3 containing 3 scripts:
  1. leave creator
  2. setting -> tree
  3. tree -> setting
• Now even your document has the power to create trees!

1. Setting -> tree

   Launch the script (double click on item 2). You'll be prompted to choose a file, browse through the examples in the downloaded folder named "tree settings" and choose one.
   Once confirmed, the tree script starts, it may take a while. When the process ends you should see your just created tree. Edit the new generated classes as you want ("foglie", "rami" etc.), set the lights and perform a rendering.

2. Tree -> setting

   This script lets you edit the parameter constants and save them.
   Double click on the script in the resource editor. You will see [Fig. 1], at the beginning of the script, a series of constant parameters, between the brackets {} there are comments for each parameter.

   Change these values to obtain different trees. Experiment with them, be careful to follow {comment} suggestions.

   Each time you launch this script and you create your model, the used variables are registered into the standard output file in the Vectorworks® main folder. You can open this file with a text editor and save it with an explicit name into the settings folder (to be reused).
   Note: save it as text only [.txt], do not use .doc or other word processor's format.

3. Leave creator

   This script help you to create your own leaves to use in the tree script.
   The procedure to add new kind of leaves (or even fruit) to the tree program may result difficult to newbies of VectorScript, because it involves manual modifications of the script.
   Leave creator let you rapidly prototype your 3D polygon(s) constituting a single leave's shape.

   Usage of leave creator

   • Draw your 2D shape of the leave into a grid (for example a 10x10) with the lower center to 0,0.
   • Open to edit the leave crator script and start to insert polygon's points always starting from px,py,pz
     

     poly3D	(
     	px,py,pz,
     	px+ thisleave*2/10,py-thisleave*1/10,pz+ thisleave* 1/10,
     	px+ thisleave*3/10,py-thisleave*1/10,pz+ thisleave* 3/10,
     	px+ thisleave*3/10,py-thisleave*1/10,pz+ thisleave*6/10,
     	px+ thisleave*2/10,py-thisleave*1/10,pz+ thisleave*8/10,
     	px,py,pz+ thisleave*12/10,
     	{axis of the leave, the following points should be simmetrycal}
     	px,py,pz
     	);

   • Refer all points to px,py,pz plus an offset given by the variable thisleave multiplied for a fraction of the grid.
   • Exit the VectorScript editor and launch the script to draw it.
   • When your leave is OK, enter again the script then select/copy the text from begingroup; to endgroup; (if a leave is made of a single 3d poly, the begin/endgroup are not necessary, so copy only the poly3D() definition).
   • The copied text has to be pasted in the function FOGLIA (CASE selection) with a new label (es. 12: poly3D(mypoints....)) prosecuting the previous enumeration and leaving in place the OTHERWISE label.
   • Of course this has to be made on both setting->tree and tree->setting.
   • To edit fruit/flowers is a bit difficultier. The path to follow is to create an empty VW document, draw the 3D object (as simplest as you can), export it as VectorScript, open the exported file with a text editor, copy the object definition in the selection case of the FRUTTA function. Remember to refer each operation to px,py,pz starting point plus an offset with a thisfruit dependency. Follow the existing examples as a guide.

Defining natural trees is a challenge for your computer, though with this simple script it is theoretically possible. As a standard procedure you have to define a point of compromise that yields good rendering results with a reasonable processing time. This point may varies with the hardware you work (processor and RAM).
Here same suggestions to limit memory usage at minimum, up to you to decide if increase it or not:

1. Set Vectorworks General Preferences 3D Conversion Resolution and 3D Circle Resolution to minimum. Set the slider of 3D rotation to quick and slider of Retain 3D model to never.
2. Be careful with use of constants generations and forks.
   Remember that the number of nodes (branches) generated is given by this formula:
   totnodes := forks^0+forks^1+forks^2+...+forks^generations;
   So, for example, 3 forks and 3 generations give 1+3+3*3+3*3*3 = 40 nodes.
   It's easy to argue that increasing forks or generations values yields high values of nodes.
3. Limit the use of leaves to minimum, use the simplest leave type (2), do not use fruits.

This is the list of the tree setting folder:

01-peach in flower	02-orange with fruits	03-horror tree
04-bush with berries	05-kiwi	06-ficus
07-young pine	08-olive	09-maple

And here some high quality rendered snapshots I prepared to show you the program possibilities:

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