Abstract: A rapid virtual tree pruning method based on color encoding is proposed to address the challenge of interactive pruning operations in 3D space.The requirements and difficulties are analyzed.Based on ParaTree-a parameter-based 3D tree modeling system,a rapid 3D primitive picking method for a large collection of metadata is proposed.It encodes a 3D tree model with 32-bits RGBA colors,and fulfills interactive stem pruning by leveraging the off-screen buffers of GPU and the color encoding.Experimental results showed that our method is accurate,fast,general-purposed,and is compatible with various tree modeling approaches.The proposed method provides a new way to digital type design and pruning for virtual tree planting and management.