An Unreal Engine–Based 3D Simulation of Circadian Clocks in Photorealistic Autonomous Plant Point Clouds

Abstract

In recent years, the development of agricultural digital twins has been increasingly demanded as a form of agricultural simulation in digital spaces based on real-world data. To realize agricultural digital twins, it is necessary to incorporate real plants into digital spaces as realistic three-dimensional models and to analyze biological information through three-dimensional simulations. The circadian clock is present in nearly all cells, synchronizing its phase with neighboring cells and exhibiting phase responses to changes in the external environment. Therefore, a three-dimensional circadian clock simulation for digital plants—whose appearance and geometry are reconstructed from real-world data and in which circadian clocks are implemented at the cellular level—is a key foundational technology for agricultural digital twins. In this study, we construct photorealistic autonomous point cloud plant models by implementing circadian clocks at each point of photorealistic plant three-dimensional point cloud models rendered using Unreal Engine, and simulate environmental responses of the circadian clock as well as the spatiotemporal evolution of its spatial patterns.