Es_4 Vegetation Modelling and Analysis - Mediterranean Cypress (h: 10m, w: 2.5m)

For this assignment I decided to model and study a tree that I see everytime I look outside through my window in my bedroom: a Mediterranean Cypres. As can be seen in the pictures below, It is a quite widespreed tree in my garden. As I questioned my parents why exactly did they choose to plant so many Cypreses in the garden (since I was too young to know when they did it) they answered me that It was only for aesthetic purpose. In fact, as It turns out after having done some reserches, this type of tree is quite commonly utilised and cultivated as an ornamental tree, especially to create tree rows beside roads or to mark out gardens.

Panoramic view of my garden from the terrace

                                     View of the tree from my bedroom                                                                                                                    View of the tree row of Cypreses from outside

The foliage grows in dense and thick sprays and stays the same both in winter and in summer, this charateristic makes it an evergreen tree. Based on its age the height can be up to 35 meters, but the one I have in my garden are tall 10 meters on avarege. The trunk usually grows straight without any big inconstancy in its witdh and it usually takes dozens of years before  It can measure 30 meters or so.

Modelling

The first thing I did was mesuring the tree that I wanted to model. It has a trunk witdh of 23 cm, making it a 11,5 cm radius. I couldn't directly measure its height, but by looking at it by different points of view I could tell that It is tall about 10 m by comparing it with my house.

Next, I started the Vasari application selecting New Conceptual Mass under the Families gategory. As usual I changed the view to Ortographic and the Units as I pleased. Since I am modelling a tree I set the units to centimeters

First of all, I changed the base level name, I called it "BASE". The program asks after that if you want to rename the corresponding views, I choosed yes so to have an overview of my levels in the Project Browser. I proceeded to create a circle on the "BASE" level making sure that the center of the circle would be at the intersection of the 2 vertical Reference Planes. The I created another Level and named it "COLMO TRONCO".

Before extruding the circle, I selected one of the two vertical Reference Planes as Work Plane and then created a Reference Line using an orthogonal view. After that I alligned the vertical Reference Line to the other vertical Reference Plane and set a Constraint (closed the lock). After that I alligned the vertical Reference Line to both the "BASE" level and the "COLMO TRONCO" level and closed the lock on both allignment.

I finally extruded the circle. After selecting both the circle and the Reference Line using Ctrl, I selected the Create Form command. The result was a cylinder which base was alligned with "BASE" and top was alligned with "COLMO TRONCO". This is because I alligned the vertical Reference Line with those two entities before and, since the extrusion took into consideration the Reference Line too, the resulting cylinder now share the same properties that had the Reference Line. Having the cylinder that I created (which would be the trunk of our model) alligned to the Levels is very important because this way I can simply Label the Dimensions (height) of the levels instead of the single Mass and create different kind of trunks by using different parameters.

I selected the lower circle of the cylinder using Tab and selected the command Edit Profile under the Modify tab. Then I selected the Radial Dimension command and gave a dimension to the lower circle. 

I reselected the dimension and clicked on the drop-down menu near Label and selected <add Parameter> to give a new parameter to the circle. I called this parameter "RAGGIO TRONCO". I did the same thing for the upper circle, giving it the same parameter as the lower circle.

I created 3 other Levels and named them "CHIOMA 1", "CHIOMA 2" and "COLMO CHIOMA", then I created a series of concentric circles on each level. After that, like for the trunk, I did a vertical Reference Line using the Reference Planes. And at last I created the Mass using the circles and the Reference Line like I did for the trunk. After that I alligned and locked every circle on its respective level.

Like the trunk, I gave Radial Dimensions to every circle and gave them different Labels. Then I gave to the model Linear Dimensions to its heights and labelled them appropriatelly  After that I selected the Family Types Icon (near the Properties icon under the Model tab) and selected New in the opened window. I called my Family "CIPRESSO 10m" and then gave to every Label that I created a parameter to accuratelly resemble the tree in my garden.

I tried experimenting with the Family by importing it in the previous model. In my opinion the most critical hours in this area are the afternoon summer hours, because west of the project site the are no close building or vegetation that could cast shadows on both the project and the already existing buildings.

16/07/2014 17:00 PM

A possible solution to this problem could be a green wall of cypresses that, if enough tall (the cypresses in the pictures are 20m and 25m tall) and close to each other, could at least partially shade not only our project, but the other buildings too. This arrangement could even create some suggestive views like the one below.