Abstract
Plants are complex organisms, showing collective adaptive behavior. Plant behavior is often defined by shoot growth, yet root systems exhibit equally complex, less visible, behaviors. Roots have to navigate in a particular environment, while optimizing nutrient and water uptake as well as avoiding exposure to harmful elements. In this paper, we introduce an interactive, agent-based simulation model of root growth. It supports the exploration of the interplay of different root models within different environments. To this end, we resort to Swarm Grammars (SGs) which combine the interactivity of spatial agents with the generative perspectives of LSystems. We pursue a point-based representation of the environment due to its versatility with respect to modeling and rendering possibilities. SGs and point-based environments are combined in a simulation that enables interactions between a user, agents and the environment at runtime. We validate the model by recreating and analysing several established root model configurations, and validate the benefits of the interactive simulation by an expert interview.