The modelling platform GroIMP is designed as an integrated platform incorporating modelling, visualization and interaction. It exhibits several features that make it suitable for the field of biological and ALife modelling:

The “modelling backbone” consists in the language XL. It is fully integrated, e.g., the user can interactively select the rules to be applied. GroIMP provides classes that can be used in modelling: Turtle commands, further geometrical classes like bicubic surfaces, the class Cell, which has been used in the Game Of Life implementation, and so on. The outcome of a model is visualized within GroIMP. In the visual representation of the model output, users can interact with the dynamics of the model, e.g., by selecting or deleting elements. A networked mode is available, allowing different users to interact with the modelled world synchronously. This may be an interesting feature to be used in the field of e-learning.

• Interactive editing of scenes
• Rich set of 3D objects, including primitives, NURBS curves and surfaces, and height fields
• Material options like colors, and textures
• Java + L-System grammar support
• Real-time rendering using OpenGL
• Support of several import and export formats
• Build-in raytracing implementations (CPU and GPU-based)
• Full spectral raytracing (down to 1nm buckets)

This wiki contains the documentation of the GroIMP software for both users and developers.

Find more information on L-Systems, growth grammar, and the XL language at the grogra website

Find the latest version of the GroIMP API documentation here

GroIMP is not only an open source project, but it also tries to be an open source community, meaning we try to share knowledge and models as freely as code.

Therefore we encourage you to contribute your knowledge to our wiki, share your models in our gallery, and to cite the project if you use GroIMP in your publications.

If you have questions that can not be answered through the wiki, please reach out to the community on Discourse or WeChat, this way the answers you receive are also visible for others in the future.

To raise issues or request features, please visit our GitLab repositories: https://gitlab.com/grogra/groimp (the main repository) and https://gitlab.com/grogra/groimp-plugins (for all plugins), to create issues. Use the type “issue” for issues and the type “tasks” for feature requests and suggestions. If you are not sure where exactly to place your issue please add it to the main repository.

You are also more than welcome to contribute to the source code of the project or one of its plugins. Please simply fork the repository, make your changes, and create a merge request.

Feel free to send your questions and remarks to .

The GroIMP software is released under the GNU public license.

Part of the research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in the framework of the research unit Virtual Crops and in further projects.

The project has been developed at the Brandenburgische Technische Universität of Cottbus and the Georg-August University of Göttingen.