Search Results (30)

In order to improve the accuracy of multispectral image inversion of soil and plant analytical development (SPAD) of the cotton canopy, image segmentation methods were utilized to remove the background interference, such as soil and shadow in UAV multispectral images. UAV multispectral images of cotton bud stage canopies at three different heights (30 m, 50 m, and 80 m) were acquired. Four methods, namely vegetation index thresholding (VIT), supervised classification by support vector machine (SVM), spectral mixture analysis (SMA), and multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA), were used to segment cotton, soil, and shadows in the multispectral images of cotton. The segmented UAV multispectral images were used to extract the spectral information of the cotton canopy, and eight vegetation indices were calculated to construct the dataset. Partial least squares regression (PLSR), Random forest (FR), and support vector regression (SVR) algorithms were used to construct the inversion model of cotton SPAD. This study analyzed the effects of different image segmentation methods on the extraction accuracy of spectral information and the accuracy of SPAD modeling in the cotton canopy. The results showed that (1) The accuracy of spectral information extraction can be improved by removing background interference such as soil and shadows using four image segmentation methods. The correlation between the vegetation indices calculated from MESMA segmented images and the SPAD of the cotton canopy was improved the most; (2) At three different flight altitudes, the vegetation indices calculated by the MESMA segmentation method were used as the input variable, and the SVR model had the best accuracy in the inversion of cotton SPAD, with R² of 0.810, 0.778, and 0.697, respectively; (3) At a flight altitude of 80 m, the R² of the SVR models constructed using vegetation indices calculated from images segmented by VIT, SVM, SMA, and MESMA methods were improved by 2.2%, 5.8%, 13.7%, and 17.9%, respectively, compared to the original images. Therefore, the MESMA mixed pixel decomposition method can effectively remove soil and shadows in multispectral images, especially to provide a reference for improving the inversion accuracy of crop physiological parameters in low-resolution images with more mixed pixels. Full article

This study aimed to examine the efficiency of the vegetation index (VI) thresholding approach for mapping deadwood caused by spruce bark beetle outbreak. For this, the study used upscaling from individual dead spruce detection by unmanned aerial (UAS) imagery as reference data for continuous spruce deadwood mapping at a stand/landscape level by VI thresholding binary masks calculated from satellite Sentinel-2 imagery. The study found that the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was most effective for distinguishing dead spruce from healthy trees, with an accuracy of 97% using UAS imagery. The study results showed that the NDVI minimises cloud and dominant tree shadows and illumination differences during UAS imagery acquisition, keeping the NDVI relatively stable over sunny and cloudy weather conditions. Like the UAS case, the NDVI calculated from Sentinel-2 (S2) imagery was the most reliable index for spruce deadwood cover mapping using a binary threshold mask at a landscape scale. Based on accuracy assessment, the summer leaf-on period (June–July) was found to be the most appropriate for spruce deadwood mapping by S2 imagery with an accuracy of 85% and a deadwood detection rate of 83% in dense, close-canopy mixed conifer forests. The study found that the spruce deadwood was successfully classified by S2 imagery when the spatial extent of the isolated dead tree cluster allocated at least 5–7 Sentinel-2 pixels. Full article

Tree species information is important for forest management, especially in seedling stands. To mitigate the spectral admixture of understory reflectance with small and lesser foliaged seedling canopies, we proposed an image pre-processing step based on the canopy threshold (C_th) applied on drone-based multispectral images prior to feeding classifiers. This study focused on (1) improving the classification of seedlings by applying the introduced technique; (2) comparing the classification accuracies of the convolutional neural network (CNN) and random forest (RF) methods; and (3) improving classification accuracy by fusing vegetation indices to multispectral data. A classification of 5417 field-located seedlings from 75 sample plots showed that applying the C_th technique improved the overall accuracy (OA) of species classification from 75.7% to 78.5% on the C_th-affected subset of the test dataset in CNN method (1). The OA was more accurate in CNN (79.9%) compared to RF (68.3%) (2). Moreover, fusing vegetation indices with multispectral data improved the OA from 75.1% to 79.3% in CNN (3). Further analysis revealed that shorter seedlings and tensors with a higher proportion of C_th-affected pixels have negative impacts on the OA in seedling forests. Based on the obtained results, the proposed method could be used to improve species classification of single-tree detected seedlings in operational forest inventory. Full article

Accurate canopy extraction and temperature calculations are crucial to minimizing inaccuracies in thermal image-based estimation of orchard water status. Currently, no quantitative comparison of canopy extraction methods exists in the context of precision irrigation. The accuracies of four canopy extraction methods were compared, and the effect on water status estimation was explored for these methods: 2-pixel erosion (2PE) where non-canopy pixels were removed by thresholding and morphological erosion; edge detection (ED) where edges were identified and morphologically dilated; vegetation segmentation (VS) using temperature histogram analysis and spatial watershed segmentation; and RGB binary masking (RGB-BM) where a binary canopy layer was statistically extracted from an RGB image for thermal image masking. The field experiments occurred in a four-hectare commercial peach orchard during the primary fruit growth stage (III). The relationship between stem water potential (SWP) and crop water stress index (CWSI) was established in 2018. During 2019, a large dataset of ten thermal infrared and two RGB images was acquired. The canopy extraction methods had different accuracies: on 12 August, the overall accuracy was 83% for the 2PE method, 77% for the ED method, 84% for the VS method, and 90% for the RGB-BM method. Despite the high accuracy of the RGB-BM method, canopy edges and between-row weeds were misidentified as canopy. Canopy temperature and CWSI were calculated using the average of 100% of canopy pixels (CWSI_T100%) and the average of the coolest 33% of canopy pixels (CWSI_T33%). The CWSI_T33% dataset produced similar SWP–CWSI models irrespective of the canopy extraction method used, while the CWSI_T100% yielded different and inferior models. The results highlighted the following: (1) The contribution of the RGB images is not significant for canopy extraction. Canopy pixels can be extracted with high accuracy and reliability solely with thermal images. (2) The T33% approach to canopy temperature calculation is more robust and superior to the simple mean of all canopy pixels. These noteworthy findings are a step forward in implementing thermal imagery in precision irrigation management. Full article

Non-destructive and destructive leaf area estimation are critical in plant physiological and ecological experiments. In modern agriculture, ubiquitous digital cameras and scanners are primarily replacing traditional leaf area measurements. Thus, measuring the leaflet’s dimension is integral in analysing plant photosynthesis and growth. Leaf dimension assessment with image processing is widely used nowadays. In this investigation employed an image segmentation algorithm to classify the ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L.) canopy image with a threshold segmentation technique by grey colour model and calculating the degree of green colour in the HSV (hue, saturation, value) model. Notably, the segmentation technique is used to separate suitable surfaces from a defective noisy background. In this work, the canopy area was measured by pixel number statistics relevant to the known reference area. Furthermore, this paper proposed total leaf area estimation in a destructive method by a computer coordinating area curvimeter and lastly evaluated the overlapping percentage using the total leaf area and canopy area measurements. To assess the overlapping percentage using the proposed algorithm, the curvimeter method experiment was performed on 24 images of ice plants. The obtained results reveal that the overlapping percentage is less than 10%, as evidenced by a difference in the curvimeter and the proposed algorithm’s results with the canopy leaf area approach. Furthermore, the results show a strong correlation between the canopy and total leaf area (R²: 0.99) calculated by our proposed method. This overlapping leaf area finding offers a significant contribution to crop evolution by using computational techniques to make monitoring easier. Full article

Fruit skin colour is one of the most important visual fruit quality parameters driving consumer preferences. Proximal sensors such as machine vision cameras can be used to detect skin colour in fruit visible in collected images, but their accuracy in variable orchard light conditions remains a practical challenge. This work aimed to derive a new fruit skin colour attribute—namely a Colour Development Index (CDI), ranging from 0 to 1, that intuitively increases as fruit becomes redder—to assess colour development in peach and nectarine fruit skin. CDI measurements were generated from high-resolution images collected on both east and west sides of the canopies of three peach and one nectarine cultivars using the commercial mobile platform Cartographer (Green Atlas). Fruit colour (RGB values) was extracted from the central pixels of detected fruit and converted into a CDI. The repeatability of CDI measurements under different light environments was tested by scanning orchards at different times of the day. The effects of cultivar and canopy side on CDI were also determined. CDI data was related to the index of absorbance difference (I_AD)—an index of chlorophyll degradation that was correlated with ethylene emission—and its response to time from harvest was modelled. The CDI was only significantly altered when measurements were taken in the middle of the morning or in the middle of the afternoon, when the presence of the sun in the image caused significant alteration of the image brightness. The CDI was tightly related to I_AD, and CDI values plateaued (0.833 ± 0.009) at I_AD ≤ 1.20 (climacteric onset) in ‘Majestic Pearl’ nectarine, suggesting that CDI thresholds show potential to be used for harvest time decisions and to support logistics. In order to obtain comparable CDI datasets to study colour development or forecast harvest time, it is recommended to scan peach and nectarine orchards at night, in the early morning, solar noon, or late afternoon. This study found that the CDI can serve as a standardised and objective skin colour index for peaches and nectarines. Full article

The large area estimation of forest canopy closure (FCC) using remotely sensed data is of high interest in monitoring forest changes and forest health, as well as in assessing forest ecological services. The accurate estimation of FCC over the regional or global scale is challenging due to the difficulty of sample acquisition and the slow processing efficiency of large amounts of remote sensing data. To address this issue, we developed a novel bounding envelope methodology based on vegetation indices (BEVIs) for determining vegetation and bare soil endmembers using the normalized differences vegetation index (NDVI), modified bare soil index (MBSI), and bare soil index (BSI) derived from Landsat 8 OLI and Sentinel-2 image within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, then combined the NDVI with the dimidiate pixel model (DPM), one of the most commonly used spectral-based unmixing methods, to map the FCC distribution over an area of more than 90,000 km². The key processing was the determination of the threshold parameter in BEVIs that characterizes the spectral boundary of vegetation and soil endmembers. The results demonstrated that when the threshold equals 0.1, the extraction accuracy of vegetation and bare soil endmembers is the highest with the threshold range given as (0, 0.3), and the estimated spatial distribution of FCC using both Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images were consistent, that is, the area with high canopy density was mainly distributed in the western mountainous region of Chifeng city. The verification was carried out using independent field plots. The proposed approach yielded reliable results when the Landsat 8 data were used (R² = 0.6, RMSE = 0.13, and 1-rRMSE = 80%), and the accuracy was further improved using Sentinel-2 images with higher spatial resolution (R² = 0.81, RMSE = 0.09, and 1-rRMSE = 86%). The findings demonstrate that the proposed method is portable among sensors with similar spectral wavebands, and can assist in mapping FCC at a regional scale while using multispectral satellite imagery. Full article

Mapping crop variables at different growth stages is crucial to inform farmers and plant breeders about the crop status. For mapping purposes, inversion of canopy radiative transfer models (RTMs) is a viable alternative to parametric and non-parametric regression models, which often lack transferability in time and space. Due to the physical nature of RTMs, inversion outputs can be delivered in sound physical units that reflect the underlying processes in the canopy. In this study, we explored the capabilities of the coupled leaf–canopy RTM PROSAIL applied to high-spatial-resolution (0.015 m) multispectral unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data to retrieve the leaf chlorophyll content (LCC), leaf area index (LAI) and canopy chlorophyll content (CCC) of sweet and silage maize throughout one growing season. Two different retrieval methods were tested: (i) applying the RTM inversion scheme to mean reflectance data derived from single breeding plots (mean reflectance approach) and (ii) applying the same inversion scheme to an orthomosaic to separately retrieve the target variables for each pixel of the breeding plots (pixel-based approach). For LCC retrieval, soil and shaded pixels were removed by applying simple vegetation index thresholding. Retrieval of LCC from UAV data yielded promising results compared to ground measurements (sweet maize RMSE = 4.92 µg/m², silage maize RMSE = 3.74 µg/m²) when using the mean reflectance approach. LAI retrieval was more challenging due to the blending of sunlit and shaded pixels present in the UAV data, but worked well at the early developmental stages (sweet maize RMSE = 0.70 $\mathrm{m}$${}^2$/$\mathrm{m}$${}^2$, silage RMSE = 0.61 $\mathrm{m}$${}^2$/$\mathrm{m}$${}^2$ across all dates). CCC retrieval significantly benefited from the pixel-based approach compared to the mean reflectance approach (RMSEs decreased from 45.6 to 33.1 µg/m²). We argue that high-resolution UAV imagery is well suited for LCC retrieval, as shadows and background soil can be precisely removed, leaving only green plant pixels for the analysis. As for retrieving LAI, it proved to be challenging for two distinct varieties of maize that were characterized by contrasting canopy geometry. Full article

Canopy temperature (T_c) is used to characterize plant water physiology, and thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing is a convenient technology for measuring T_c in forest ecosystems. However, the images produced through this method contain background pixels of forest gaps, thereby reducing the accuracy of T_c observations. Extracting T_c data from TIR images is of great significance for understanding changes in ecosystem water status. In this study, a temperature threshold method was developed to rapidly, accurately, and automatically extract forest canopy pixels for T_c data obtention. Specifically, this method takes the temperature corresponding to the point with a slope of 0.5 in the curve composed of the normalized average temperature and the normalized cumulative number of pixels as the segmentation threshold to separate the forest gap pixels from the forest canopy pixels in the TIR images and extract the separated forest canopy pixels based on the pixel coordinates for T_c data obtention. Taking the T_c values, measured using a thermocouple, as the standard, T_c extraction using the new temperature threshold method and traditional methods (the Otsu algorithm and direct extraction) was compared in cork oak plantations. The results showed that the temperature threshold method offered the highest extraction accuracy, followed by the direct extraction method and the Otsu algorithm. The temperature threshold method was determined to be the most suitable for extracting T_c data from the TIR images of cork oak plantations. Full article

Plant breeding experiments typically contain a large number of plots, and obtaining phenotypic data is an integral part of most studies. Image-based plot-level measurements may not always produce adequate precision and will require sub-plot measurements. To perform image analysis on individual sub-plots, they must be segmented from plots, other sub-plots, and surrounding soil or vegetation. This study aims to introduce a semi-automatic workflow to segment irregularly aligned plots and sub-plots in breeding populations. Imagery from a replicated lentil diversity panel phenotyping experiment with 324 populations was used for this study. Image-based techniques using a convolution filter on an excess green index (ExG) were used to enhance and highlight plot rows and, thus, locate the plot center. Multi-threshold and watershed segmentation were then combined to separate plants, ground, and sub-plot within plots. Algorithms of local maxima and pixel resizing with surface tension parameters were used to detect the centers of sub-plots. A total of 3489 reference data points was collected on 30 random plots for accuracy assessment. It was found that all plots and sub-plots were successfully extracted with an overall plot extraction accuracy of 92%. Our methodology addressed some common issues related to plot segmentation, such as plot alignment and overlapping canopies in the field experiments. The ability to segment and extract phenometric information at the sub-plot level provides opportunities to improve the precision of image-based phenotypic measurements at field-scale. Full article

This article explores the application of Hölder exponent analysis for the identification and delineation of single tree crowns from very high-resolution (VHR) imagery captured by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Most of the present individual tree crown detection (ITD) methods are based on canopy height models (CHM) and are very effective as far as an accurate digital terrain model (DTM) is available. This prerequisite is hard to accomplish in some environments, such as alpine forests, because of the high tree density and the irregular topography. Indeed, in such conditions, the photogrammetrically derived DTM can be inaccurate. A novel image processing method supports the segmentation of crowns based only on the parameter related to the multifractality description of the image. In particular, the multifractality is related to the deviation from a strict self-similarity and can be treated as the information about the level of inhomogeneity of considered data. The multifractals, even if well established in image processing and recognized by the scientific community, represent a relatively new application in VHR aerial imagery. In this work, the Hölder exponent (one of the parameters related to multifractal description) is applied to the study of a coniferous forest in the Western Alps. The infrared dataset with 10 cm pixels is captured by a UAV-mounted optical sensor. Then, the tree crowns are detected by a basic workflow. This consists of the thresholding of the image on the basis of the Hölder exponent. Then, the single crowns are segmented through a multiresolution segmentation approach. The ITD segmentation was validated through a two-level validation analysis that included a visual evaluation and the computing of quantitative measures based on 200 reference crowns. The results were checked against the ITD performed in the same area but using only spectral, textural, and elevation information. Specifically, the visual assessment included the estimation of the producer’s and user’s accuracies and the F1 score. The quantitative measures considered are the root mean square error (RMSE) (for the area, the perimeter, and the distance between centroids) and the over-segmentation and under-segmentation indices, the Jaccard index, and the completeness index. The F1 score indicates positive results (over 73%) as well as the completeness index that does not exceed 0.23 on a scale of 0 to 1, taking 0 as the best result possible. The RMSE of the extension of crowns is 3 m², which represents only 14% of the average extension of reference crowns. The performance of the segmentation based on the Hölder exponent outclasses those based on spectral, textural, and elevation information. Despite the good results of the segmentation, the method tends to under-segment rather than over-segment, especially in areas with sloping. This study lays the groundwork for future research into ITD from VHR optical imagery using multifractals. Full article

The present study addresses the tree counting of a Eucalyptus plantation, the most widely planted hardwood in the world. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) was used for the estimation of Eucalyptus trees. LiDAR-based estimation of Eucalyptus is a challenge due to the irregular shape and multiple trunks. To overcome this difficulty, the layer of the point cloud containing the stems was automatically classified and extracted according to the height thresholds, and those points were horizontally projected. Two different procedures were applied on these points. One is based on creating a buffer around each single point and combining the overlapping resulting polygons. The other one consists of a two-dimensional raster calculated from a kernel density estimation with an axis-aligned bivariate quartic kernel. Results were assessed against the manual interpretation of the LiDAR point cloud. Both methods yielded a detection rate (DR) of 103.7% and 113.6%, respectively. Results of the application of the local maxima filter to the canopy height model (CHM) intensely depends on the algorithm and the CHM pixel size. Additionally, the height of each tree was calculated from the CHM. Estimates of tree height produced from the CHM was sensitive to spatial resolution. A resolution of 2.0 m produced a R² and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.99 m and 0.34 m, respectively. A finer resolution of 0.5 m produced a more accurate height estimation, with a R² and a RMSE of 0.99 and 0.44 m, respectively. The quality of the results is a step toward precision forestry in eucalypt plantations. Full article

Spatial and temporal patterns of tropical leaf renewal are poorly understood and poorly parameterized in modern Earth System Models due to lack of data. Remote sensing has great potential for sampling leaf phenology across tropical landscapes but until now has been impeded by lack of ground-truthing, cloudiness, poor spatial resolution, and the cryptic nature of incremental leaf turnover in many tropical plants. To our knowledge, satellite data have never been used to monitor individual crown leaf phenology in the tropics, an innovation that would be a major breakthrough for individual and species-level ecology and improve climate change predictions for the tropics. In this paper, we assessed whether satellite data can detect leaf turnover for individual trees using ground observations of a candidate tropical tree species, Moabi (Baillonella toxisperma), which has a mega-crown visible from space. We identified and delineated Moabi crowns at Lopé NP, Gabon from satellite imagery using ground coordinates and extracted high spatial and temporal resolution, optical, and synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) timeseries data for each tree. We normalized these data relative to the surrounding forest canopy and combined them with concurrent monthly crown observations of new, mature, and senescent leaves recorded from the ground. We analyzed the relationship between satellite and ground observations using generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs). Ground observations of leaf turnover were significantly correlated with optical indices derived from Sentinel-2 optical data (the normalized difference vegetation index and the green leaf index), but not with SAR data derived from Sentinel-1. We demonstrate, perhaps for the first time, how the leaf phenology of individual large-canopied tropical trees can directly influence the spectral signature of satellite pixels through time. Additionally, while the level of uncertainty in our model predictions is still very high, we believe this study shows that we are near the threshold for orbital monitoring of individual crowns within tropical forests, even in challenging locations, such as cloudy Gabon. Further technical advances in remote sensing instruments into the spatial and temporal scales relevant to organismal biological processes will unlock great potential to improve our understanding of the Earth system. Full article

This study presents a comparative study of multispectral and RGB (red, green, and blue) sensor-based cotton canopy cover modelling using multi-temporal unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) imagery. Additionally, a canopy cover model using an RGB sensor is proposed that combines an RGB-based vegetation index with morphological closing. The field experiment was established in 2017 and 2018, where the whole study area was divided into approximately 1 x 1 m size grids. Grid-wise percentage canopy cover was computed using both RGB and multispectral sensors over multiple flights during the growing season of the cotton crop. Initially, the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)-based canopy cover was estimated, and this was used as a reference for the comparison with RGB-based canopy cover estimations. To test the maximum achievable performance of RGB-based canopy cover estimation, a pixel-wise classification method was implemented. Later, four RGB-based canopy cover estimation methods were implemented using RGB images, namely Canopeo, the excessive greenness index, the modified red green vegetation index and the red green blue vegetation index. The performance of RGB-based canopy cover estimation was evaluated using NDVI-based canopy cover estimation. The multispectral sensor-based canopy cover model was considered to be a more stable and accurately estimating canopy cover model, whereas the RGB-based canopy cover model was very unstable and failed to identify canopy when cotton leaves changed color after canopy maturation. The application of a morphological closing operation after the thresholding significantly improved the RGB-based canopy cover modeling. The red green blue vegetation index turned out to be the most efficient vegetation index to extract canopy cover with very low average root mean square error (2.94% for the 2017 dataset and 2.82% for the 2018 dataset), with respect to multispectral sensor-based canopy cover estimation. The proposed canopy cover model provides an affordable alternate of the multispectral sensors which are more sensitive and expensive. Full article

Open global forest cover data can be a critical component for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policies. In this work, we determine the best threshold, compatible with the official Brazilian dataset, for establishing a forest mask cover within the Amazon basin for the year 2000 using the Tree Canopy Cover 2000 GFC product. We compared forest cover maps produced using several thresholds (10%, 30%, 50%, 80%, 85%, 90%, and 95%) with a forest cover map for the same year from the Brazilian Amazon Deforestation Monitoring Project (PRODES) data, produced by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). We also compared the forest cover classifications indicated by each of these maps to 2550 independently assessed Landsat pixels for the year 2000, providing an accuracy assessment for each of these map products. We found that thresholds of 80% and 85% best matched with the PRODES data. Consequently, we recommend using an 80% threshold for the Tree Canopy Cover 2000 data for assessing forest cover in the Amazon basin. Full article