Interactive Tree Visualizer

An interactive, animated fractal tree generator built with React and TypeScript. Users can customize branching parameters, colors, animation speed, and explore tree generation in real time via zooming, panning, and controls.

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Features

• Animated tree growth based on user-defined depth and branching rules.
• Real-time controls for:
  • Number of branches per level
  • Maximum recursion depth
  • Initial length, width, and angle
  • Leaf size, branch color, color settings, animation speed
• Drag & Zoom to explore large trees
• Performance-aware UI: dynamically warns when tree size may affect performance
• Live branch counter and expected total branches

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Project Structure

src/

• app/

  • page.tsx # Root layout and rendering logic

• components/

  • control-panel/ # Settings UI

    • ControlPanel.tsx
    • control-slider.tsx
    • color-pickers.tsx
    • action-buttons.tsx

  • tree/

    • Tree.tsx # Recursively renders branches
    • Branch.tsx # Represents a single recursive branch
    • TreeWindow.tsx # Viewport that includes drag, zoom, etc.

  • ui/

    • Line.tsx # Renders a rotated line (branch segment)
    • Leaf.tsx # Renders a leaf shape

• hooks/

  • use-drag.ts
  • use-zoom.ts
  • use-tree-animation.ts

• utils/

  • tree-settings-types.ts

Key Components

Component	Purpose	Uses / Parent Of
ControlPanel	Panel with all sliders, color pickers, and buttons	Parent of TreeWindow
TreeWindow	Canvas container; handles dragging, zoom, animation, and renders the root tree	Uses Tree, useDrag, useZoom, useTreeAnimation
Tree	Recursively renders branches and leaves up to currentLevel	Uses Branch and Leaf
Branch	Recursively renders sub-branches and lines	Uses Line and Branch (recursive)
Line	Visual component for individual branch lines	—
Leaf	Visual component representing a leaf	—
useTreeAnimation	Hook that updates the current animation level at a user-set frame rate	Used by TreeWindow
useDrag	Tracks and updates offset for drag-panning	Used by TreeWindow
useZoom	Listens to mouse wheel events to apply zoom scaling	Used by TreeWindow

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Performance Analysis

Tree rendering performance depends heavily on two variables:

• maxLevel (tree depth)
• branchesPerLevel (branching factor)

Theoretical Branch Count

TotalBranches = Σ (branchesPerLevel^n) for n from 0 to maxLevel

Growth is exponential with depth and number of branches per level.

Performance Metrics

Metric	Description	Value (Example: 6 levels, 3 branches/level)
Max Elements Rendered	Total <Line> & <Leaf> components rendered	~364 nodes
Animation Update Rate	Tree expands frame-by-frame at frameRate (ms)	e.g., 30 FPS → 33ms
Memory Usage (DOM-heavy)	Scales with node count, primarily due to inline styles	~1–2MB for moderate trees
FPS (on 60Hz monitor)	With 500+ nodes, remains stable on modern browsers	55–60 FPS

Optimization Techniques

• Debounced state updates during animation
• lineCount batching using useRef to reduce renders
• Early termination in animation once maxLevel is reached
• Estimated branch count preview and performance warnings in UI

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Future Improvements

• GPU-accelerated rendering with WebGL/Canvas for larger trees
• Tree export (PNG, SVG)
• Touch support for mobile (drag/zoom)
• State sharing / saving (e.g., share your tree settings via URL) """