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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.

Sec. Technical Advances in Plant Science

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1610577

Research on cotton plant type identification method based on multidimensional vision

Provisionally accepted
Ying  LiuYing Liu1Bo  LiuBo Liu1Weihua  FuWeihua Fu1Jiajie  YangJiajie Yang2Xiaotong  ZhengXiaotong Zheng1Xiaojuan  LiXiaojuan Li1*Xiantao  AiXiantao Ai1*
  • 1Xinjiang University, Urumqi, China
  • 2Center for Western Agricultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Changji, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Plant type is an important part of plant phenotypic research, which is of great significance for practical applications such as plant genomics and cultivation knowledge modeling. The existing plant type judgment mainly relies on subjective experience, and lacks automatic analysis and identification methods, which seriously restricts the progress of efficient crop breeding and precision cultivation. In this study, the digital structure model of cotton plant was constructed based on multi-dimensional vision, and the rapid analysis and identification method of cotton plant type was established. 50 cotton plants were used as experimental objects in this study. Firstly, multi-view images of cotton plants at boll opening stage were collected, and a three-dimensional point cloud model of cotton plants was constructed based on Structure From Motion and Multi View Stereo (SFM-MVS) algorithm. The original cotton point cloud data was preprocessed by coordinate correction, statistical filtering, conditional filtering and down-sampling to obtain a high-quality three-dimensional model. The three-dimensional model is projected in two dimensions to obtain the two-dimensional projection data of cotton plants from multiple perspectives. Secondly, based on the fast convex hull algorithm, the cotton plant two-dimensional convex hull was constructed from multiple perspectives, and the distribution range and corner change rate of each corners of the convex hull were analyzed, and the identification basis of cotton plant type was established. The R2 of plant height and width extracted from the model were greater than 0.90, and RMES were 0.372 cm and 0.387 cm, respectively. When the maximum number of point clouds is 75335, the point cloud reading time, cotton multi-view projection time, and convex hull automatic construction time are 0.402 S, 2.275 S, and 0.018 S, respectively. Finally, the cotton cylinder type classification interval is 0-0.2, and the tower type classification interval is 0.4-1.5. The cotton plant type identification method proposed in this study is fast and efficient. It provides a solid theoretical basis and technical support for cotton plant type identification.

Keywords: three-dimensional reconstruction, Two-dimensional projection, Fast convex hull, Corner change rate, plant type

Received: 12 Apr 2025; Accepted: 28 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Liu, Fu, Yang, Zheng, Li and Ai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Xiaojuan Li, 13699987055@163.com
Xiantao Ai, aixiantao@xju.edu.cn

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