Growth monitoring of plants using active contour technique

Abstract

The growth of plants is easily affected by external conditions such as sunlight, temperature, humidity and some organic and non-organic materials. Some fertilizers have effects on the growth and the volume of the plants. This paper measures the effects of some fertilizers on the plants using active contour computer vision technique by calculating the plant growth. The contour of an object is easily obtained by active contour technique namely Snakes method that uses the physical analogy such as elasticity, bending from physics in the way of boundary decision of the object. Several seed types such as mash bean, zucchini, cowpea, and cucumber, which are in the important consumption rate in Turkey, are used for growth monitoring in this paper. These plants are in large cultivations not only in Turkish farms but also in most of the countries in the World. Therefore, the planting of these seeds that obtained from certified seedsman is handled immediately after germination. They are cultivated in pots inside the laboratory environment. The soil in pots is mixed with some fertilizers. Synthetic and natural fertilizers are divided into some classes. There are nitrogen, phosphate, potassium and compound fertilizers basically different from organic ones. This paper measures effects of fertilizers on growth via computer vision that the images are captured in the plant growth phase namely seedlings. All the images are analyzed by using designed GUI constructed on C# as form application which applies Snakes method.