The Development of a Stereo Vision System to Study the Nutation Movement of Climbing Plants

Jan 24, 2024

MINT Lab plant member Aditya Ponkshe and lab director Paco Calvo recently published a paper on a new stereo vision machine system to study the movement of climbing plants. Download it here!

Abstract

Climbing plants, such as common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), exhibit complex motion patterns that have long captivated researchers. In this study, we introduce a stereo vision machine system for the in-depth analysis of the movement of climbing plants, using image processing and computer vision. Our approach involves two synchronized cameras, one lateral to the plant and the other overhead, enabling the simultaneous 2D position tracking of the plant tip. These data are then leveraged to reconstruct the 3D position of the tip. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of external factors, particularly the presence of support structures, on plant movement dynamics. The proposed method is able to extract the position of the tip in 86–98% of cases, achieving an average reprojection error below 4 px, which means an approximate error in the 3D localization of about 0.5 cm. Our method makes it possible to analyze how the plant nutation responds to its environment, offering insights into the interplay between climbing plants and their surroundings.

Authors

Aditya Ponkshe

Aditya Ponkshe

Post-Doctoral Researcher

Adi is a Post-Doctoral Researcher who has spearheaded the bean and pea plant experiments.

Paco Calvo

Paco Calvo

Lab Director

Paco is the Director of the MINT Lab and a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Murcia, Spain.