Morph a plant

Edit a generated plant's growth parameters and watch the geometry update. Use morphing to fit a model to a specific cultivar, run sensitivity studies, or build a library of parameter presets.

Prerequisite

You need a generated plant already in the scene. See Generate a plant.

Open the morph panel

1. Select the plant's mesh in the Scene panel.
2. Open the command palette (Cmd/Ctrl+K) and run Morph Plant. The Morph popup opens.

What you can change

The popup header reads Morph: {Species} ({age}d). Parameters are scoped per shoot type, so the popup has a tab row across the top — edits apply to the selected shoot type only.

Geometry parameters

Five editable parameters drive growth (the same five for every species):

• Internode Length — segment length between leaves
• Insertion Angle — angle at which a side branch leaves its parent
• Girth Factor — taper rate from trunk to twig
• Curvature — gravitropic curvature of the shoot
• Tortuosity — how much the shoot wanders as it grows

Each row shows the parameter's distribution as a read-only pill (constant, uniform, normal, …). This is informational — you can't switch a parameter to a different distribution. What you can edit depends on it:

• constant — a slider plus a value box.
• uniform / normal — two number boxes joined by a -, for the distribution's own bounds.

Anything the backend exposes outside these five is shown read-only under Growth & Structural (read-only).

Geometry Scale

Multiplicative scales applied after generation:

• Leaf scale — multiplier on leaf size
• Petiole Length / Petiole Radius — petiole dimensions
• Internode radius — branch thickness

Useful when the structure is right but the absolute dimensions need tuning to match a specific cultivar.

Read-only parameters

Some parameters (growth rates, bud break thresholds, dormancy timing) are exposed for reference but not editable — they're tied to the species' phenology model. To change them you'd need to extend the underlying Helios model.

Apply changes

After editing, click Regrow. Phytograph rebuilds the plant at its current age using the new parameters. The mesh updates in place.

If you don't like the result, Reset restores the species defaults.

Morphing is not undoable

Regrowing replaces the mesh geometry and recreates the backend plant session, so it clears the undo history for that plant. ⌘/Ctrl+Z will not bring back the previous parameter set — export your parameters first if you want to return to them.

Modified parameters are marked with an amber accent and an x scale factor relative to the default (e.g. 1.25x), so you can see at a glance what you've changed.

Save and reuse presets

• Export parameters (download icon) — save the current parameter set to a file.
• Import parameters (upload icon) — load a previously saved set.

Both are icon-only buttons in the popup header; hover to see the tooltip.

This is the easiest way to build up a per-cultivar library. Name files descriptively (e.g., apple_fuji_high-density.json) and check them into version control alongside your analysis code.

Workflow: fit to a scan

A common loop when you have a real plant scan and want a matching procedural model:

1. Generate at the right species and age.
2. Align the generated mesh to the scan via Register & compare.
3. Morph to reduce the RMSE — try girth and insertion angle first; these have the biggest visual effect.
4. Repeat alignment + morph until the fit is satisfactory.
5. Export parameters to lock in the cultivar parameters.

For a rigorous fit, scriptable parameter sweeps via the backend API will be more efficient than manual iteration. See the developer docs.