Community news

An Xplo script was built to extract the architecture of a 30 years old AmapSim tree at growth units level (ramification and geometry) for Arnoul Van Rooij (INRAE Clermont-Ferrand), PhD about study of the sensitivity of branches to breakage. (fc-17.3.2021)

The Xplo User Manual is now available online, see the documentation page. (fc-12.5.2020)

A new release of Scan is available. Scan 1.3 was reviewed, the multi-screen windowing management is better, the menus were reorganized, enhancements have been done on the focus feature, A Save Project command was added, a new feature was added to move an extremity of an edge with the mouse to faster fix vertices connection troubles, several commands were added to smooth the vertices directions, explanation texts now appear for each command, the TreeQSM import / export was updated and the security against too big Point cloud files loading has been removed. Scan 1.3 may be downloaded in the most recent AMAPstudio-setup-xxx.jar installer on the Download page. (fc-8.4.2020)

Mickael Baril and Marc Jaeger (Cirad AMAP) spent few days to work together on bug fixes and new features on Xplo's .lig export and Simeo AmamScene export. They want to export a scene of Principes palm trees (Hervé Rey) to a legacy AMAP scene (high quality rendering) in true colors and forced colors to feed a deep learning tree recognition algorithm. (fc-7.6.2019)

The AMAPstudio web installer containing only freely distributable models and available on the Download page has been upgraded to a March 2019 release. (fc-18.3.2019)

New features have been added to AMAPstudio-Scan with Olivier Martin and Stéphane Momo Takoudjou (IRD AMAP): reloading .opf files, exporting a report of the user changes on the topology. (fc-4.7.2018)

A Functional-Structural Plant Modelling permanent position is opened by Cirad in the AMAP laboratory until 18.6.2018. Another 6 months position for a developer is opened until 14.6.2018. (fc-22.5.2018)

AMAPstudio-Scan was presented by S. Griffon at T-Lidar workshop, INRA Avignon (23-24 november 2016). (S. Griffon, 24.11.2016)

AMAPstudio now officially relies on Java 1.8 (i.e. Java 8), you may check the documentation pages for more details. (fc - 27.7.2016)

On April 2016, banana Musament project based on PRINCIPES (H. Rey, S. Griffon 14.04.2016)

On 25 and 26th of November 2015, our MOCAF and PHC-M network attended the first meeting of PHC Maghreb program in Rabat CNRST, Morocco. Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan teams presented 6 posters on Date Palm architecture modelling and simulation. One of our poster was rewarded by the “best poster” price for students works. link to the MOCAF and PHC-M network : https://www.mocaf.net/index.php (H. Rey, 30.11.2015)

The PHC Maghreb meeting took place in Montpellier on 5-9 October 2015. Students present the results and perspectives of their works based on Principes and DigR. (H. Rey, 09.10.2015)

The training session “Measuring and Exploring Plant Structure“ took place in Montpellier on 2-3 April 2015. Eleven participants (researchers and students) attended this session. Botanists (Y. Caraglio, S. Sabatier) teached concepts of morphology necessary for reading and measuring plants. Then Xplo was presented (H. Rey, S. Griffon) and used to encode some walnut axes and to extract temporal and spatial data from these measurements. (S. Griffon, 15.4.2015)

Marion Jourdan (AgroParisTech student) used the AMAPstudio software suite to produce highly detailed and realistic 3D mock-ups of maritime pine stands. These mock-ups are to be used for modelling the interaction of LiDAR signal and vegetation with DART (Cesbio Toulouse) and LiDART (AMAP). AmapSim was used to simulate stands of trees growing in interaction. Xplo and Simeo were used to extract individual or stand parameters from the mock-ups in order to compare them to those observed in real trees stands. The model parameters of individual trees (i.e. simulated without neighbours) were first adjusted using the following response variables: total height and height of the first living branch, projected crown surface, total leaf area and diameter at breast height. Then, stands of pines were simulated, introducing explicit competition for space between neighbouring trees and management thinning and the model parameters were adjusted using the gap fraction as response variable. This internship was funded by the CNES and is part of the STEM-LEAF project (check the project page). (C. Madelaine-Antin, 25.11.2014)

Jean-Francois Barczi and Sébastien Griffon spent 2 weeks in Kourou (Guyane) to work on tropical tree wood infra-density with Eric Nicolini (UMR AMAP - CIRAD). A new Xplo module was created to integrate density sample data into tree architecture and to compute total tree mass. This mission was funded by Feder project. (S. Griffon, 30.10.2014)

A connection between Computree and AMAPstudio has been created. Computree (https://computree.onf.fr/) is now able to manage a topology and to load and save OPF files. (S. Griffon, 11.6.2014)

AMAPstudio now officially relies on Java 1.7 (i.e. Java 7), you may check the documentation pages for more details. (fc - 27.5.2014)

A recent upgrade of SSL on the amap-dev.cirad.fr server, hosting the Capsis and AMAPstudio projects, may prevent the modellers to reconnect to the SVN server for an 'update' or 'commit' from their local copies. A step by step documentation explains how to resolve these problems with SmartSVN 8 (needs a modeller level login). (fc - 21.5.2014)

From 11 to 15 November 2013, within the context of MOCAF and PHC Maghreb projects, Principes was presented at the Plant Modeling architecture International Internship Workshop applied to date palm in Ouarzazate, Morocco. (S. Griffon, 4.12.2013)

A reference paper about AMAPstudio has been accepted in Ecological Modelling, see the Publications page for more details. (F. de Coligny, 4.11.2013)

Yongzhi Ong (University of Goettingen, Germany) and Sébastien Griffon spent 9 days to develop a connection between GroIMP and AMAPstudio. A new GroIMP module has been created in Xplo. This module calls GroIMP with an XL script file and saves each step of the simulation into an ArchiTree, a technical documentation is available. (F. de Coligny, 11.10.2013)

Capsis and AMAPstudio have been presented at the IUFRO 5.01.04 – Wood quality modelling international conference MeMoWood, in Nancy 1-4 October 2013. The presentation is available here. (F. de Coligny, 11.10.2013)

Francois de Coligny was invited to present Capsis and AMAPstudio at the international summer school “Modelling of Ecosystems by Tools from Computer Sciences” co-organised at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague (Czech Republic) on 16-20 September 2013 by Profs. Winfried Kurth and Branislav Sloboda (University of Goettingen, Germany) and Prof. Marek Fabrika (Technical University of Zvolen, Slovakia), and coupled with the 6th meeting of the developers and users of GroIMP. (F. de Coligny, 23.9.2013)

Chloé Bourden (Master student, IRD AMAP) used Simeo - Lollymangrove in order to (1) upload and verify her field inventory data, (2) calculate the plots’ biomass and carbon with different allometry models and (3) visualise the type of structure for mangrove populations. (C. Bourden, 2.7.2013)

AMAPstudio was presented by S. Griffon at FSPM2013, the 7th International Conference on Functional – Structural Plant Models in Saariselka, Finland (9-14th june). (F. de Coligny, 14.6.2013)

A Palm tree workshop related to ecophysiology and modelling has been organized by Cirad last 22nd May 2013. During this workshop, the AMAP lab presented a collective contribution showing the past collaborations with the other teams in Montpellier, the new projects, the goals regarding sciencific results and applications, and the possible partnerships to reach them. 2013-05-22-rey-journee-palmier-a-huile-agap.pdf (H. Rey, 23.5.2013)

René Lecoustre, Jean-Francois Barczi and Hervé Rey attended the First International Meeting on Phytogenetic Resources of Date-Palm from 15 to 17 April 2013 in Djerba, Tunisia. They presented two communication on (i) statistical studies on the allometric relationships for the vegetative part (PRINCIPES model) and (ii) root architecture analysis and modelling (DigR model) of Phoenix dactylifera. After this meeting, a working program was built for the next two years concerning the MOCAF and PHC Maghreb projects. (H. Rey, 29.4.2013)

A paper about AMAPstudio was published in the IEEE proceedings of the PMA'12 international conference, see the Publications page for more details. (F. de Coligny, 25.11.2012)

Under the research partnership network on growth, architecture and flowering modeling of Phoenix dactylifera, a training workshop was held in Ghardaia (Algeria) between October 30 and November 2, 2012. René Lecoustre and Hervé Rey have provided training on measurement methods, modeling techniques (PRINCIPES) and introduced participants to the use of the simulation tools of AMAPstudio. In addition to these two trainers, the workshop was attended by five members of the network MOCAF who have already experienced the methods of measurement on the field and 12 “learners”. (H. Rey & R. Lecoustre, 13.11.2012)

Clemens Weissteiner, Phd-Student at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Vienna) is using Xplo to import MTGs from several recorded riparian trees. Beside a proper visualization of the tree models, Xplo is used for extracting and analysing different geometrical-topological parameters of the trees to understand better the influence of hydrodynamic loading on riparian vegetation. Furthermore he would like to export 3D-Models to CAD-Software and later for modelling the deformation of the plants under hydrodynamic loads. (Clemens Weissteiner, 13.11.2012)

PhD. student Ming Yang (UR Ephyse-INRA / UMR Amap-CIRAD) used Xplo software to: 1. import a .MTG file which contained root structure data of Maritime pines collected by Frédéric Danjon (UMR BioGeCo-INRA); 2. export the data of a root system as .INP files used by software Abaqus during pre-processing. The purpose of creating .INP files is to model and simulate tree anchorage using Abaqus (Yang Ming, 12.11.2012)

AMAPstudio was presented by S. Griffon at the PMA'12 symposium in Shanghai (China) : Go to PMA'12 website (October 31 - November 3, 2012)

The Archimed1 library is available, it is part of the AMAPstudio 1.1 installer. This library can be used from the Simeo scene editor through an export plugin. See the Download section. (F. de Coligny, 20.7.2012)

Herve Rey and Rene Lecoustre made an initiation to the Xplo software utilisation; the context was the PRINCIPES model in order to modelise and simulate Date palm tree. This formation took place in Tunisia, Djerba island, in 2011 november. 12 engineers and researchers attended this formation, to be able to form themselves Phd students. (H. Rey, 13 july 2012).

AMAPstudio was presented by S. Griffon at the 1st French-Brazilian FSPM meeting in Campinas (Brazil) : https://sites.google.com/site/fspm1meeting/ (October 24-26, 2011)

AMAPstudio 1.0 released and available on amapstudio.cirad.fr. The Izpack installer for windows and Linux contains Xplo, Simeo and a freely distributable subset of models. (F. de Coligny, 14.10.2011)