Multi-scale 3D data acquisition of maize

Abstract

In recent years, three-dimensional (3D) data acquisition and model reconstruction of plants have been developed as a hot topic of plant scientific researches. However, the morphological structure of plants is very complex and it is hard to describe the details. The data acquisition approaches are diverse for different parts of plants. This study introduces the data acquisition methods of different scales of maize. The grain, leaf and ear, individual plant and maize colony represents the target models for different scales. 3D data acquisition instruments are used to acquire the morphometric of each target. It is found that the organ scale is the simplest to obtain and process. The smallest grain needs high-resolution scanner to acquire the morphological details, while the plant canopy is the hardest one for point cloud process and modeling. The data and reconstructed models are oriented to digital plant, phenotyping analysis, FSPMs research, and popular science education application.