Estimating the size of plants by using two parallel views

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a method of estimating the size of plants by using two parallel views of the scene, taken by a common digital camera. The approach relays on the principle of similar triangles with the following constraints: the resolution of the camera is known; the object is always in parallel to the camera sensor and the intermediate distance between the two concessive images is available. The approach was first calibrated and tested using one artificial object in a controlled environment. After that real examples were taken from agriculture, where we measured the distance and the size of a vine plant, apple and pear tree. By comparing the calculated values to measured values, we concluded that the average absolute error in distance was 0.11 m or around 3.7 %, and the absolute error in high was 0.09 m or 4.6 %.