Development of a Procedure to Measure the Structure of a Plant Community Using Stereo Images Taken by Two Digital Cameras

For the estimation of production or evapotranspiration of a plant community, the spatial structure of plants, especially the geometry of the leaves, has to be known. The geometry of leaves is defined by the shape, the area and the position of each leaf. It is known that the area of a leaflet of beans can be estimated by the lengths of the long and short axes of a leaflet. Two images were taken at the same time by two cameras, which were set at different positions, in a mungbean field. The spatial coordinates of four points, which determine the long and short axes of a leaflet, were estimated by the analysis of the stereo images