Background Cell geometry plays a central role in determining division orientation and body axis formation during early embryogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana . However, quantitative analysis of dynamic three-dimensional (3D) morphology remains challenging because live-imaging studies often rely on two-dimensional (2D) projections, while existing 3D reconstruction approaches, including mesh-based methods, often lose the original orientation information relative to the ovule and require labor-intensive mesh correction. In addition, embryo positional fluctuation caused by floating in liquid medium and continuous growth makes it difficult to analyze temporal morphological changes within a common coordinate system. Results We developed a robust framework for quantitative 3D and four-dimensional (4D; 3D + time) analysis of embryo initial cell (apical cell) morphology. The method first establishes a standardized 3D coordinate system by normalizing cell orientation based on the bottom plane and the optical axis of the observation. Cell morphology is then reconstructed through ellipse-based approximation of serial cross-sections extracted from stacked imaging data, enabling accurate geometric characterization without the need for complex surface mesh reconstruction. To evaluate shape anisotropy, we quantified the apical cell shape in 3D. The framework further supports the characterization of volumetric features of subsequent division, providing a basis for quantifying 3D embryogenesis. Conclusion Our framework provides a simple and noise-reduced approach for quantitative analysis of living cell morphology in 3D. We named the integrated method of combining coordinate normalization with elliptical cross-section-based reconstruction Apical3DTip. This method enables consistent comparison of cell shapes without extensive manual corrections. The method overcomes key limitations of 2D projection-based and mesh-dependent analyses and offers a practical platform for quantifying cell shape and daughter cell shapes in 3D. More broadly, it provides a quantitative foundation for exploring the relationship between cell geometry, morphodynamics, and developmental patterning in living plant embryos.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物胚の細胞形態を3D・4D画像から定量化する再構成手法を開発しており、表現型取得・抽出法が研究の中心である。
abstractWe developed a robust framework for quantitative 3D and four-dimensional (4D; 3D + time) analysis of embryo initial cell (apical cell) morphology.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's Methods availability statement explicitly deposits the Apical3DTip analysis code and associated datasets on two public GitHub repositories (main implementation and ImageJ plugin). These are paper-specific author assets for the 3D/4D apical cell reconstruction and phenotyping analysis. No separate phenotype/Code · publicctor of the fitted vertical plane:
R ! .
Because the fitted plane passes through the centroid s, the offset e was calculated as
N
MQ.
Then, the fitted plane was represented as
O G N O
MQ 0.
Availability of data and materials
The code for Apical3DTip, along with all associated datasets, is available on Github:
https://github.com/blues0910/Apical3DTip.
Apical3DTip is also available as an ImageJ plugin:
https://github.com/YusukeKimata-Moo/Apical3DTip.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding
This work was supported by a Japan Society for the PromotOpen asset ↗https://github.com/blues0910/Apical3DTippdf-layout-page:12 lines:1-49Code · publictroid s, the offset e was calculated as
N
MQ.
Then, the fitted plane was represented as
O G N O
MQ 0.
Availability of data and materials
The code for Apical3DTip, along with all associated datasets, is available on Github:
https://github.com/blues0910/Apical3DTip.
Apical3DTip is also available as an ImageJ plugin:
https://github.com/YusukeKimata-Moo/Apical3DTip.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding
This work was supported by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI
Grant (No. JP22K15135 to H.M., JP25H01809 to Y.K., JP26K02023 tOpen asset ↗https://github.com/YusukeKimata-Moo/Apical3DTippdf-layout-page:12 lines:1-49Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Europe PMC · bioRxiv · Crossref · checked 15 Sept 2026
BarleyCommon beanCowpeaGrowth chamberMesh / voxelLiDAR / point cloudMultispectral / hyperspectralLeafWhole plant / canopy / plot / fieldAnnotation / quality control
Abstract High-throughput 3D multispectral plant phenotyping platforms generate large volumes of point cloud files, but trait extraction is typically performed by sensor-bundled software whose internal algorithms are not publicly documented, which limits reproducibility and integration into custom research pipelines. Here we present PhytoScan3D, an open-source Python pipeline that extracts morphological and spectral phenotypic traits, spanning plant height, 3D leaf area, digital biomass, convex hull volume, leaf inclination, canopy geometry, NDVI, hue, and vegetation indices, from both PLY and PCD point cloud files generated by Phenospex PlantEye F500 and F600 sensors, and is portable to point clouds from any acquisition platform. PhytoScan3D was validated against HortControl (PhenoSpex) ground-truth measurements on 936 barley ( Hordeum vulgare ) pot-date observations from the growth chamber trial (20 Norwegian cultivars, 12 scan dates, Septemenr 2025 to January 2026), achieving Pearson r = 0.913 to 0.999 and ratio approximately 1.000 for Plant Height Max, 3D Leaf Area, and NDVI Average. A vectorised mesh face filtering implementation achieved a 120x speed improvement, increasing valid 3D Leaf Area coverage from 0.6% to 100% of files. Cross-format validation on 223 PlantEye F600 PCD files from the ICRISAT LeasyScan platform (four legume species: mungbean, cowpea, lima bean, and common bean; 1,523 plant observations) yielded r = 0.884 against independent cuboid annotation heights. The systematic positive bias (mean +27.2 mm, ratio = 1.44) is attributable to PhytoScan3D computing height from raw point cloud Z-range while cuboid annotations are fitted to segmented plant points only, with the offset consistent across all four species (per-species r = 0.880 to 0.888). Cross-dataset processing of 1,180 PLY files from the Crops3D benchmark (8 species, 3 acquisition methods) confirmed zero extraction errors. PhytoScan3D is available at “github.com/kovimallik/phytoscan3d” under the MIT licence and processes 1,651 files across three independent datasets in under 12 minutes on GPU hardware. Highlights PhytoScan3D is the first open-source Python pipeline for batch extraction of phenotypic traits, including plant height, 3D leaf area, digital biomass, convex hull volume, leaf inclination, NDVI, and excess green index, from both PLY and PCD point cloud files generated by Phenospex PlantEye sensors. Primary validation against HortControl ground-truth measurements on 936 barley pot-date observations achieved Pearson r = 0.913-0.999 for Plant Height Max, 3D Leaf Area, and NDVI Average. A 120x computational speedup in mesh face filtering (vectorised NumPy vs. set-based loop) increased the coverage of valid 3D Leaf Area extraction from 0.6% to 100% of files. Cross-format validation on 223 PlantEye F600 PCD files from ICRISAT LeasyScan (four legume species, 1,523 plants) achieved r = 0.884 against independent cuboid annotation heights. The systematic +27.2 mm bias reflects a methodological difference (raw Z-range vs. soil-segmented annotations), is consistent and predictable across all four species (per-species r = 0.880-0.888), and is correctable by a single linear factor. Cross-dataset processing of 1,180 PLY files from the Crops3D benchmark (8 species, 3 acquisition methods) confirmed zero extraction errors. Significant scan-unit variation was detected for Plant Height Max (F = 5.71, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.138) and Canopy Width X (F = 6.32, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.150), demonstrating the biological utility of extracted traits.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物の3D点群・マルチスペクトルデータから形態・スペクトル形質を抽出するオープンソース手法を開発し、複数データセットで技術検証・ベンチマークしているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。
abstractHere we present PhytoScan3D, an open-source Python pipeline that extracts morphological and spectral phenotypic traits
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's own analysis code (PhytoScan3D pipeline) is publicly released on GitHub under the MIT licence, and the two external 3D point cloud datasets used for validation (Crops3D and ICRISAT LeasyScan) are publicly available on figshare. The primary barley PLY dataset is not yet public (to be deposited in NVA upon).Code · publicditing, Funding acquisition.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal
relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Data Availability
PhytoScan3D source code, documentation, and example datasets are available at
https://github.com/kovimallik/phytoscan3d under the MIT licence. The barley PLY dataset
will be deposited in the Norwegian Research Information Repository (NVA) upon acceptance.
The Crops3D benchmark dataset is publicly available at
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27313272 (Zhu et al. 2024). The ICRISAT LeasyScan
dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10Open asset ↗github.com/kovimallik/phytoscan3dpdf-raw-page:15 lines:1-36Dataset · publicData Availability
PhytoScan3D source code, documentation, and example datasets are available at
https://github.com/kovimallik/phytoscan3d under the MIT licence. The barley PLY dataset
will be deposited in the Norwegian Research Information Repository (NVA) upon acceptance.
The Crops3D benchmark dataset is publicly available at
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27313272 (Zhu et al. 2024). The ICRISAT LeasyScan
dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28270742 (Galba et al.
2025).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the PheNo, DLT-Farming and Soil2Milk from Research Council
of Norway and TWIN-NUE from Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). The
authoOpen asset ↗figshare · 10.6084/m9.figshare.27313272pdf-raw-page:15 lines:1-36Dataset · publicimallik/phytoscan3d under the MIT licence. The barley PLY dataset
will be deposited in the Norwegian Research Information Repository (NVA) upon acceptance.
The Crops3D benchmark dataset is publicly available at
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27313272 (Zhu et al. 2024). The ICRISAT LeasyScan
dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.28270742 (Galba et al.
2025).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the PheNo, DLT-Farming and Soil2Milk from Research Council
of Norway and TWIN-NUE from Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). The
authors thank Sara Catarina Costa Laranjeira, Min Lin and other NMBU growth facility staff
for plant care and scanning operOpen asset ↗figshare · 10.6084/m9.figshare.28270742pdf-raw-page:15 lines:1-36Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Europe PMC · checked 14 Sept 2026
BACKGROUND: Leaf inclination angle (LIA) is a key trait affecting crop canopy structure and photosynthetic efficiency, but its accurate measurement is challenging due to complex leaf geometry, especially in narrow, curved rice leaves. As the flag leaf serves as the primary photosynthetic organ in rice, the precise spatial parsing of its architecture is crucial for optimizing canopy light interception and yield potential. With the rapid development of high-throughput phenotyping technologies, an increasing number of studies have focused on the fine-grained characterization of 3D crop architecture. However, accurate methodologies for extracting the flag leaf inclination angle (FLIA) in rice, as well as systematic investigations into its spatiotemporal variation patterns, remain largely unexplored. RESULTS: In this study, we systematically evaluated multiple plane-fitting strategies based on SfM-MVS point clouds, finding that voxel-based piecewise analysis outperformed traditional global approaches. To further improve accuracy, skeleton extraction methods were innovatively extended to LIA estimation. A proposed multi-method ensemble, based on the median of eight skeleton extraction combinations, yielded high robustness (R2 = 0.923, RMSE = 2.072°) against photographic ground truth. By applying the proposed framework to both field- and pot-grown rice, we observed no significant FLIA differences between varieties or nitrogen treatments under field-grown conditions, likely due to phenotypic plasticity regulated by population effects. However, pot-grown plants, experiencing reduced interplant competition, exhibited significant varietal differences in FLIA. Across growth environments, varieties, and nitrogen treatments, FLIA at maturity was significantly lower than at anthesis and grain filling stages due to leaf senescence. CONCLUSIONS: This study establishes a robust and accurate measurement framework for LIA based on 3D point clouds, improving estimation performance through piecewise analysis, voxelization, and ensemble strategies. The proposed approach is demonstrated to be an effective tool for the precise quantification of rice leaf phenotypes.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsSfM-MVS点群からイネ葉の傾斜角を抽出する手法を開発・検証し、圃場および鉢植えで適用しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心である。
abstractA proposed multi-method ensemble, based on the median of eight skeleton extraction combinations, yielded high robustness (R2 = 0.923, RMSE = 2.072°) against photographic ground truth.
Reproduction assets found保存済みの本文根拠を更新済みルールで再検証し、公開資産1件を確認しました。Code · publicThe python program, complete dataset, including the original two-dimensional images and corresponding piecewise measurement trajectories, is publicly available at https://github.com/Interstingsun/LIA (accessed on 6 February, 2026).Open asset ↗Interstingsun/LIAlines:77-83Code / dataset availability confirmedCrossref · OpenAlex · Europe PMC · checked 6 Sept 2026
RiceWheatField / plotMesh / voxelNeRF / 3D Gaussian SplattingLiDAR / point cloudPanicle / ear / spikeLeafRootSeed / grain
Advanced plant phenotyping technologies are vital for trait improvement and accelerating intelligent breeding. Due to the species diversity of plants, existing methods heavily rely on large-scale high-precision manually annotated data. For self-occluded objects at the grain level, unsupervised methods often prove ineffective. This study proposes IPENS, an interactive unsupervised multi-target point cloud extraction method. It utilizes radiance field information to lift 2D masks, segmented by SAM2 (Segment Anything Model 2), into 3D space for target point cloud extraction. A multi-target collaborative optimization strategy addresses the challenge of segmenting multiple targets from a single interaction. On a rice dataset, IPENS achieves a grain-level segmentation mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) of 63.72%. For phenotypic trait estimation, it achieves a grain voxel volume coefficient of determination R 2 = 0.7697 (Root Mean Square Error, RMSE = 0.0025), leaf surface area R 2 = 0.84 (RMSE = 18.93), and leaf length and width prediction accuracies of R 2 = 0.97 and R 2 = 0.87 (RMSE = 1.49 and 0.21). On a wheat dataset, IPENS further improves segmentation performance to a mIoU of 89.68%, with exceptional phenotypic estimation results: panicle voxel volume R 2 = 0.9956 (RMSE = 0.0055), leaf surface area R 2 = 1.00 (RMSE = 0.67), and leaf length and width predictions reaching R 2 = 0.99 and R 2 = 0.92 (RMSE = 0.23 and 0.15). Without requiring annotated data, IPENS rapidly extracts grain-level point clouds for multiple targets within three minutes using single-round image interactions. These features make IPENS a high-quality, non-invasive phenotypic extraction solution for rice and wheat, offering significant potential to enhance intelligent breeding.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物形質抽出のためのNeRF-SAM2融合手法を開発し、作物データセットで分割性能と形質推定精度を検証しているため、方法開発・検証が中心である。
abstractThis study proposes IPENS, an interactive unsupervised multi-target point cloud extraction method.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's analysis code is publicly available on GitHub. The rice/wheat MMR/MMW phenotype datasets (multi-view images, point clouds, annotations) are only available upon reasonable request, so they are not public.Code · publicCode is available at https://github.com/Vincent-Songwentao/IPENS-Code.git .Open asset ↗https://github.com/Vincent-Songwentao/IPENS-Code.gitlines:472-496Code / dataset availability confirmedEurope PMC · OpenAlex · Crossref · checked 6 Sept 2026
Differences in canopy architecture play a role in determining both the light and water use efficiency. Canopy architecture is determined by several component traits, including leaf length, width, number, angle, and phyllotaxy. Phyllotaxy may be among the most difficult of the leaf canopy traits to measure accurately across large numbers of individual plants. As a result, in simulations of the leaf canopies of grain crops such as maize and sorghum, this trait is frequently approximated as alternating 180° angles between sequential leaves. We explore the feasibility of extracting direct measurements of the phyllotaxy of sequential leaves from 3D reconstructions of individual sorghum plants generated from 2D calibrated images and test the assumption of consistently alternating phyllotaxy across a diverse set of sorghum genotypes. Using a voxel-carving-based approach, we generate 3D reconstructions from multiple calibrated 2D images of 366 sorghum plants representing 236 sorghum genotypes from the sorghum association panel. The correlation between automated and manual measurements of phyllotaxy is only modestly lower than the correlation between manual measurements of phyllotaxy generated by two different individuals. Automated phyllotaxy measurements exhibited a repeatability of R 2 = 0.41 across imaging timepoints separated by a period of two days. A resampling based genome wide association study (GWAS) identified several putative genetic associations with lower-canopy phyllotaxy in sorghum. This study demonstrates the potential of 3D reconstruction to enable both quantitative genetic investigation and breeding for phyllotaxy in sorghum and other grain crops with similar plant architectures.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D再構成とボクセル・カービングにより、ソルガムの葉序を自動抽出・定量し、手動測定との比較と再現性評価まで行っており、植物表現型取得法が研究の中心である。
abstractWe explore the feasibility of extracting direct measurements of the phyllotaxy of sequential leaves from 3D reconstructions of individual sorghum plants generated from 2D calibrated images
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's data availability statement explicitly provides public access to the reconstruction/skeletonization code (GitHub SorghumVoxelCarving), the raw 2D sorghum images used for voxel-carving 3D reconstruction (Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.4426620), and the phenotypic data, GWAS result files, and analysis/figure code,Code · publicThe code for reconstruction and skeletonization is available at GitHub: https://github.com/cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarving .Open asset ↗cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarvinglines:93-131Dataset · publicThe raw images analyzed in this study are available at Zenodo: Mathieu Gaillard, Chenyong Miao, James C. Schnable, & Bedrich Benes. (2021). Voxel Carving Based 3D Reconstruction of Sorghum [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4426620 .Open asset ↗Zenodo · 10.5281/zenodo.4426620lines:93-131Code · publicThe phenotypic data, GWAS result files and code for main figures and analysis are available at Github: https://github.com/jdavis-132/phyllotaxy.git .Open asset ↗jdavis-132/phyllotaxylines:93-131Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Europe PMC · bioRxiv · checked 15 Sept 2026
Abstract Differences in canopy architecture play a role in determining both the light and water use efficiency. Canopy architecture is determined by several component traits, including leaf length, width, number, angle, and phyllotaxy. Phyllotaxy may be among the most difficult of the leaf canopy traits to measure accurately across large numbers of individual plants. As a result, in simulations of the leaf canopies of grain crops such as maize and sorghum, this trait is frequently approximated as alternating 180° angles between sequential leaves. We explore the feasibility of extracting direct measurements of the phyllotaxy of sequential leaves from 3D reconstructions of individual sorghum plants generated from 2D calibrated images and test the assumption of consistently alternating phyllotaxy across a diverse set of sorghum genotypes. Using a voxel-carving-based approach, we generate 3D reconstructions from multiple calibrated 2D images of 366 sorghum plants representing 236 sorghum genotypes from the sorghum association panel. The correlation between automated and manual measurements of phyllotaxy is only modestly lower than the correlation between manual measurements of phyllotaxy generated by two different individuals. Automated phyllotaxy measurements exhibited a repeatability of R 2 = 0.41 across imaging timepoints separated by a period of two days. A resampling based genome wide association study (GWAS) identified several putative genetic associations with lower-canopy phyllotaxy in sorghum. This study demonstrates the potential of 3D reconstruction to enable both quantitative genetic investigation and breeding for phyllotaxy in sorghum and other grain crops with similar plant architectures.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D再構成とボクセル・カービングによりソルガムの葉序を自動抽出し、手動測定との比較および反復性を評価しており、表現型取得手法が研究の中心である。
abstractWe explore the feasibility of extracting direct measurements of the phyllotaxy of sequential leaves from 3D reconstructions of individual sorghum plants generated from 2D calibrated images
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's Data Availability section publicly deposits the raw sorghum images on Zenodo and the phenotypic data, GWAS result files, and analysis/figure code on GitHub (jdavis-132/phyllotaxy). The reconstruction/skeletonization code (cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarving) is also mentioned but its URL has no exact match inDataset · publicuction and skeletonization is available at GitHub: https://github.com/
401 cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarving
402 The raw images analyzed in this study are available at Zenodo: Mathieu Gaillard, Chenyong
403 Miao, James C. Schnable, & Bedrich Benes. (2021). Voxel Carving Based 3D Reconstruction of
404 Sorghum [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4426620.
405 The phenotypic data, GWAS result files and code for main figures and analysis are available at
406 Github: https://github.com/jdavis-132/phyllotaxy.git
407 Author Contributions
408 JMD and NS collected measurements and ground truth data. MG IO and BL designed methods
409 for and performed image analysis, plant reconstructiOpen asset ↗Zenodo · 10.5281/zenodo.4426620pdf-layout-page:14 lines:1-50Code · publicare available at Zenodo: Mathieu Gaillard, Chenyong
403 Miao, James C. Schnable, & Bedrich Benes. (2021). Voxel Carving Based 3D Reconstruction of
404 Sorghum [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4426620.
405 The phenotypic data, GWAS result files and code for main figures and analysis are available at
406 Github: https://github.com/jdavis-132/phyllotaxy.git
407 Author Contributions
408 JMD and NS collected measurements and ground truth data. MG IO and BL designed methods
409 for and performed image analysis, plant reconstruction and trait value extraction. JMD NS and
410 RJG annotated image data and employed domain expertise to reconcile extracted trait values and
411 true plaOpen asset ↗GitHub · jdavis-132/phyllotaxypdf-layout-page:14 lines:1-50Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · arXiv · checked 7 Sept 2026
In modern agriculture, precise monitoring of plants and fruits is crucial for tasks such as high-throughput phenotyping and automated harvesting. This paper addresses the challenge of reconstructing accurate 3D shapes of fruits from partial views, which is common in agricultural settings. We introduce CF-PRNet, a coarse-to-fine prototype refining network, leverages high-resolution 3D data during the training phase but requires only a single RGB-D image for real-time inference. Our approach begins by extracting the incomplete point cloud data that constructed from a partial view of a fruit with a series of convolutional blocks. The extracted features inform the generation of scaling vectors that refine two sequentially constructed 3D mesh prototypes - one coarse and one fine-grained. This progressive refinement facilitates the detailed completion of the final point clouds, achieving detailed and accurate reconstructions. CF-PRNet demonstrates excellent performance metrics with a Chamfer Distance of 3.78, an F1 Score of 66.76%, a Precision of 56.56%, and a Recall of 85.31%, and win the first place in the Shape Completion and Reconstruction of Sweet Peppers Challenge.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods果実の部分RGB-D画像から3D形状を再構成する手法を開発・評価しており、植物器官の形態形質取得が研究の中心である。
abstractThis paper addresses the challenge of reconstructing accurate 3D shapes of fruits from partial views
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's authors publicly release their CF-PRNet source code for sweet pepper point cloud completion. The sweet pepper benchmark dataset is cited prior work (ref [2]), not a paper-specific asset, and the challenge website is a generic event page.Code · publicOur source code is
available at https://github.com/uqzhichen/CF-PRNet/.Open asset ↗uqzhichen/CF-PRNetpdf-page:1 lines:1-50Code / dataset availability confirmedCrossref · Europe PMC · checked 7 Sept 2026
RiceMesh / voxelX-ray / CTRootObject detectionSegmentationRoot system architecture
Abstract Background X-ray computed tomography (CT) is a powerful tool for measuring plant root growth in soil. However, a rapid scan with larger pots, which is required for throughput-prioritized crop breeding, results in high noise levels, low resolution, and blurred root segments in the CT volumes. Moreover, while plant root segmentation is essential for root quantification, detailed conditional studies on segmenting noisy root segments are scarce. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of scanning time and deep learning-based restoration of image quality on semantic segmentation of blurry rice ( Oryza sativa ) root segments in CT volumes. Results VoxResNet, a convolutional neural network-based voxel-wise residual network, was used as the segmentation model. The training efficiency of the model was compared using CT volumes obtained at scan times of 33, 66, 150, 300, and 600 s. The learning efficiencies of the samples were similar, except for scan times of 33 and 66 s. In addition, The noise levels of predicted volumes differd among scanning conditions, indicating that the noise level of a scan time ≥ 150 s does not affect the model training efficiency. Conventional filtering methods, such as median filtering and edge detection, increased the training efficiency by approximately 10% under any conditions. However, the training efficiency of 33 and 66 s-scanned samples remained relatively low. We concluded that scan time must be at least 150 s to not affect segmentation. Finally, we constructed a semantic segmentation model for 150 s-scanned CT volumes, for which the Dice loss reached 0.093. This model could not predict the lateral roots, which were not included in the training data. This limitation will be addressed by preparing appropriate training data. Conclusions A semantic segmentation model can be constructed even with rapidly scanned CT volumes with high noise levels. Given that scanning times ≥ 150 s did not affect the segmentation results, this technique holds promise for rapid and low-dose scanning. This study offers insights into images other than CT volumes with high noise levels that are challenging to determine when annotating.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods植物根のCT画像から根をセグメンテーションし、根成長の定量化に用いる手法の開発・技術評価が中心であるため、植物フェノタイピング方法論に該当する。
abstractX-ray computed tomography (CT) is a powerful tool for measuring plant root growth in soil.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's own training/prediction scripts for the 3D semantic segmentation model (SStrainer3D) are publicly available on GitHub with explicit availability language. The CT volume datasets are only available upon request. RSAvis3D and RSAtrace3D are cited prior-work tools, not paper-specific assets.Code · publicThe scripts for the training and prediction of the 3D semantic segmentation are available at the GitHub repository ( https://github.com/st707311g/SStrainer3D/ , branch 1.0).Open asset ↗st707311g/SStrainer3Dlines:156-186Code / dataset availability confirmedEurope PMC · bioRxiv · checked 14 Sept 2026
ArabidopsisMesh / voxelMicroscopyFlowerSegmentationGrowth / time-series analysisTrackingGrowth / development / phenology
Background Arabidopsis thaliana sepals are excellent models for analyzing growth of entire organs due to their relatively small size, which can be captured at a cellular resolution under a confocal microscope [1]. To investigate how growth of different tissue layers generates unique organ morphologies, it is necessary to live-image deep into the tissue. However, imaging deep cell layers of the sepal is practically challenging, as it is hindered by the presence of extracellular air spaces between mesophyll cells, among other factors which causes optical aberrations. Image processing is also difficult due to the low signal-to-noise ratio of the deeper tissue layers, an issue mainly associated with live imaging datasets. Addressing some of these challenges, we provide an optimized methodology for live imaging sepals and subsequent image processing. This helps us track the growth of individual cells on the outer and inner epidermal layers, which are the key drivers of sepal morphogenesis. Results For live imaging sepals across all tissue layers at early stages of development, we found that the use of a bright fluorescent membrane marker, coupled with increased laser intensity and an enhanced Z-resolution produces high-quality images suitable for downstream image processing. Our optimized parameters allowed us to image the bottommost cell layer of the sepal (inner epidermal layer) without compromising viability. We used a ‘voxel removal’ technique to visualize the inner epidermal layer in MorphoGraphX [2, 3] image processing software. Finally, we describe the process of optimizing the parameters for creating a 2.5D mesh surface for the inner epidermis. This allowed segmentation and parent tracking of individual cells through multiple time points, despite the weak signal of the inner epidermal cells. Conclusion We provide a robust pipeline for imaging and analyzing growth across inner and outer epidermal layers during early sepal development. Our approach can potentially be employed for analyzing growth of other internal cell layers of the sepals as well. For each of the steps, approaches, and parameters we used, we have provided in-depth explanations to help researchers understand the rationale and replicate our pipeline.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsライブイメージング、画像処理、細胞セグメンテーションと追跡を統合した、萼片の成長・形態解析パイプラインの最適化が中心であり、植物表現型取得法に該当する。
abstractwe provide an optimized methodology for live imaging sepals and subsequent image processing
Reproduction assets found保存済みの本文根拠を更新済みルールで再検証し、公開資産1件を確認しました。Dataset · publicThe images of the WT flowers, as well as the final edited images can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UMW9B . The images shown in this manuscript correspond to WT replicate 2.Open asset ↗OSF.IO/UMW9Blines:137-166Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Crossref · checked 14 Sept 2026
Abstract Digital phenotyping, particularly the use of plant 3D models, is a promising method for high‐throughput plant evaluation. Although many recent studies on the topic have been published, further research is needed to apply it to breeding research and other related fields. In this study, using a 3D model phenotyping system we developed, we reconstructed and analyzed 20 accessions of zoysiagrass (Zoysia spp.), including three species and their hybrid, over a period of 1 year. Artificial neural network with three hidden layers was able to effectively remove nonplant parts while retaining plant parts that were incorrectly removed using the cropping method, offering a robust and flexible approach for post‐processing of 3D models. The system also demonstrated its ability to accurately evaluate a range of traits, including height, area, and color using red green blue (RGB)‐based vegetation indices. The results showed a high correlation between the estimated volume obtained from voxel 3D model and dry weight, enabling its use as a non‐destructive method for measuring plant volume. In addition, we found that the green red normalized difference index from RGB‐based indices was similar to the commonly used normalized difference vegetation index in controlled illumination conditions. These results demonstrate the potential for three‐dimensional model phenotyping to facilitate plant breeding, particularly in the field of turfgrass and feed crops.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3Dモデル再構築、ニューラルネットワークによる後処理、RGB形質推定を中核とする植物フェノタイピングシステムの開発・検証研究である。
titleDevelopment of a digital phenotyping system using 3D model reconstruction for zoysiagrass
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's data availability statement explicitly deposits the authors' analysis code on GitHub (sandysan42/Zoysia3DModel), which reproduces the 3D-model-based phenotyping analysis (height, area, color, volume). No public phenotype dataset or trained model checkpoint is stated; supporting information is generic.Code · publicYAPAIBOON ET AL.
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
A part of this study is supported by JST CREST grant number
JPMJCR16O1.
C O N F L I C T O F I N T E R E S T S TAT E M E N T
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
Codes used for analysis in this study are openly available on
GitHub at https://github.com/sandysan42/Zoysia3DModel/.O RC I D
SorawichPongpiyapaiboon https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9314-8375
Hidenori Tanaka https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4237-8154
RyoAkashi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5651-8285
R E F E R E N C E S
Bienert, A., Hess, C., Maas, H.-G., & Von Oheimb, G. (2014). A voxel-
based technique to estimate the volume of trees from terrestriOpen asset ↗sandysan42/Zoysia3DModelpdf-raw-page:10 lines:1-78Code / dataset availability confirmedEurope PMC · Crossref · checked 7 Sept 2026
Background Plant architecture can influence crop yield and quality. Manual extraction of architectural traits is, however, time-consuming, tedious, and error prone. The trait estimation from 3D data addresses occlusion issues with the availability of depth information while deep learning approaches enable learning features without manual design. The goal of this study was to develop a data processing workflow by leveraging 3D deep learning models and a novel 3D data annotation tool to segment cotton plant parts and derive important architectural traits. Results The Point Voxel Convolutional Neural Network (PVCNN) combining both point- and voxel-based representations of 3D data shows less time consumption and better segmentation performance than point-based networks. Results indicate that the best mIoU (89.12%) and accuracy (96.19%) with average inference time of 0.88 s were achieved through PVCNN, compared to Pointnet and Pointnet++. On the seven derived architectural traits from segmented parts, an R 2 value of more than 0.8 and mean absolute percentage error of less than 10% were attained. Conclusion This plant part segmentation method based on 3D deep learning enables effective and efficient architectural trait measurement from point clouds, which could be useful to advance plant breeding programs and characterization of in-season developmental traits. The plant part segmentation code is available at https://github.com/UGA-BSAIL/plant_3d_deep_learning .
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D深層学習による綿花の器官分割と建築形質抽出ワークフローを開発・比較検証しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。
abstractThe goal of this study was to develop a data processing workflow by leveraging 3D deep learning models and a novel 3D data annotation tool to segment cotton plant parts and derive important architectural traits.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's plant part segmentation code is explicitly stated as publicly available in the authors' GitHub repository. The underlying datasets are only available on request, so they are noted as request-only.Code · publicThe plant part segmentation code is available at https://github.com/UGA-BSAIL/plant_3d_deep_learning .Open asset ↗UGA-BSAIL/plant_3d_deep_learninglines:1-72Code / dataset availability confirmedEurope PMC · OpenAlex · Crossref · checked 15 Sept 2026
Current methods of root sampling typically only obtain small or incomplete sections of root systems and do not capture their true complexity. To facilitate the visualization and analysis of full-sized plant root systems in 3-dimensions, we developed customized mesocosm growth containers. While highly scalable, the design presented here uses an internal volume of 45 ft 3 (1.27 m 3 ), suitable for large crop and bioenergy grass root systems to grow largely unconstrained. Furthermore, they allow for the excavation and preservation of 3-dimensional root system architecture (RSA), and facilitate the collection of time-resolved subterranean environmental data. Sensor arrays monitoring matric potential, temperature and CO 2 levels are buried in a grid formation at various depths to assess environmental fluxes at regular intervals. Methods of 3D data visualization of fluxes were developed to allow for comparison with root system architectural traits. Following harvest, the recovered root system can be digitally reconstructed in 3D through photogrammetry, which is an inexpensive method requiring only an appropriate studio space and a digital camera. We developed a pipeline to extract features from the 3D point clouds, or from derived skeletons that include point cloud voxel number as a proxy for biomass, total root system length, volume, depth, convex hull volume and solidity as a function of depth. Ground-truthing these features with biomass measurements from manually dissected root systems showed a high correlation. We evaluated switchgrass, maize, and sorghum root systems to highlight the capability for species wide comparisons. We focused on two switchgrass ecotypes, upland (VS16) and lowland (WBC3), in identical environments to demonstrate widely different root system architectures that may be indicative of core differences in their rhizoeconomic foraging strategies. Finally, we imposed a strong physiological water stress and manipulated the growth medium to demonstrate whole root system plasticity in response to environmental stimuli. Hence, these new "3D Root Mesocosms" and accompanying computational analysis provides a new paradigm for study of mature crop systems and the environmental fluxes that shape them.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3Dルートメソコスム、フォトグラメトリ、点群解析による根系形態形質の取得・検証が研究の中心であり、植物フェノタイピング手法に該当する。
abstractTo facilitate the visualization and analysis of full-sized plant root systems in 3-dimensions, we developed customized mesocosm growth containers.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's supplementary videos on figshare are photogrammetry-generated 3D point clouds of the paper's own root system phenotyping measurements (sorghum, maize, and switchgrass root systems, including stress-conditioned and sensor-flux coaligned visualizations), publicly downloadable. The OpenCV link is a generic, unDataset · publice, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Supplementary material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2022.1041404/full#supplementary-material . Videos can be found for viewing and download at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21335898.v1 .
Supplementary Figure 1
Interpolation of 3-dimensional environmental sensor data.
Click here for additional data file.
Supplementary Figure 2
Time course of shoot morphological responses of switchgrass in different growth media.
Click here for additional data file.
Supplementary Figure 3
Manual post-process cleaning of Open asset ↗figshare · 10.6084/m9.figshare.21335898.v1lines:327-356Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Europe PMC · Crossref · checked 8 Sept 2026
BACKGROUND: High-throughput phenotyping platforms allow the study of the form and function of a large number of genotypes subjected to different growing conditions (GxE). A number of image acquisition and processing pipelines have been developed to automate this process, for micro-plots in the field and for individual plants in controlled conditions. Capturing shoot development requires extracting from images both the evolution of the 3D plant architecture as a whole, and a temporal tracking of the growth of its organs. RESULTS: We propose PhenoTrack3D, a new pipeline to extract a 3D + t reconstruction of maize. It allows the study of plant architecture and individual organ development over time during the entire growth cycle. The method tracks the development of each organ from a time-series of plants whose organs have already been segmented in 3D using existing methods, such as Phenomenal [Artzet et al. in BioRxiv 1:805739, 2019] which was chosen in this study. First, a novel stem detection method based on deep-learning is used to locate precisely the point of separation between ligulated and growing leaves. Second, a new and original multiple sequence alignment algorithm has been developed to perform the temporal tracking of ligulated leaves, which have a consistent geometry over time and an unambiguous topological position. Finally, growing leaves are back-tracked with a distance-based approach. This pipeline is validated on a challenging dataset of 60 maize hybrids imaged daily from emergence to maturity in the PhenoArch platform (ca. 250,000 images). Stem tip was precisely detected over time (RMSE < 2.1 cm). 97.7% and 85.3% of ligulated and growing leaves respectively were assigned to the correct rank after tracking, on 30 plants × 43 dates. The pipeline allowed to extract various development and architecture traits at organ level, with good correlation to manual observations overall, on random subsets of 10-355 plants. CONCLUSIONS: We developed a novel phenotyping method based on sequence alignment and deep-learning. It allows to characterise the development of maize architecture at organ level, automatically and at a high-throughput. It has been validated on hundreds of plants during the entire development cycle, showing its applicability on GxE analyses of large maize datasets.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsトウモロコシ器官の3D時系列形態を抽出・追跡する新規パイプラインを開発し、大規模データセットで精度検証しているため、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心である。
abstractWe propose PhenoTrack3D, a new pipeline to extract a 3D + t reconstruction of maize.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's own PhenoTrack3D pipeline (source code and examples) is publicly available on GitHub under an open-source licence. Phenomenal (GitHub/Zenodo) is cited prior work used as an input pipeline, not a paper-specific asset; no public phenotype dataset or trained model deposit is stated.Code · publicThe source code and examples are available on Github ( https://github.com/openalea/phenotrack3d ) under an Open Source licence (Cecill-C).Open asset ↗openalea/phenotrack3dlines:189-246Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · checked 15 Sept 2026
Satellite-based gross primary production (GPP) estimation has uncertainties due to shadow fraction caused by the geometric relationship between the complex forest structure and the Sun. The virtual forests allow shadow fraction estimation without 3D measurements, but require optimal structural parameters. In this study, we developed the reflectance simulator (Canopy-level Shadow and Reflectance Simulator, CSRS) that considers tree shadows and the method to determine the optimal canopy shape for shadow fraction estimation. The target forest is any tropical evergreen forest which accounts for 58% of tropical forests. Firstly, we analyzed the effects of canopy shape on the reflectance simulation based on virtual forests created with different canopy shapes. This result was checked by Tukey’s honestly significant difference (HSD) test. Secondly, the optimal canopy shape was determined by comparing the reflectance from Sentinel-2 Band 4 (red) bottom of atmosphere reflectance with those simulated from virtual forests. Finally, the shadow fraction estimated from the virtual forest was evaluated. Since the focus of this study was to derive the optimal canopy shape, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) structure from motion (SfM) was used to obtain the parameters other than canopy shape and to validate the estimated shadow fraction. The results showed that when the Sun zenith angle (SZA) was more than 20°, significant differences were observed among canopy shapes. The least root mean square error (RMSE) for reflectance simulation was 0.385 from the canopy shape of a half ellipsoid. Moreover, the half ellipsoid also showed the smallest RMSE in estimating shadow fraction (0.032), which indicated the reliability and applicability of CSRS. This study is the first attempt to determine the optimal canopy shape for estimating shadow fraction and is expected to improve the accuracy of GPP estimation in the future.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods森林キャノピーの影分率という植物群落の状態を推定する反射シミュレータを開発し、UAV測定およびSentinel-2反射率との比較で検証しており、植物状態の取得・推定手法が中心である。
abstractwe developed the reflectance simulator (Canopy-level Shadow and Reflectance Simulator, CSRS) that considers tree shadows and the method to determine the optimal canopy shape for shadow fraction estimation.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's CSRS reflectance/shadow simulation code is explicitly stated to be publicly available on the authors' GitHub repository. The ECOSTRESS Spectral Library is a generic external spectral database, not a paper-specific asset.Code · publicng—review and editing, W.T.; visualization, T.F.;
supervision, W.T.; project administration, W.T.; funding acquisition, W.T. All authors have read and
agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Data Availability Statement: The simulation code of CSRS is available from https://github.com/Takumi-Fuji6936/CSRS.git (accessed on 29 June 2022).
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
1. FAO. Assessment, Global Forest Resources 2020. Available online: https://www.fao.org/3/CA8753EN/CA8753EN.pdf (accessed
on 10 November 2021).
2. Beer, C.; Reichstein, M.; Tomelleri, E.; Ciais, P.; Jung, M.; CarvalhaisOpen asset ↗Takumi-Fuji6936/CSRSpdf-raw-page:13 lines:1-50Code / dataset availability confirmedbioRxiv · Europe PMC · Crossref · checked 15 Sept 2026
Quantifying healthy and degraded inner tissues in plants is of great interest in agronomy, for example, to assess plant health and quality and monitor physiological traits or diseases. However, detecting functional and degraded plant tissues in-vivo without harming the plant is extremely challenging. New solutions are needed in ligneous and perennial species, for which the sustainability of plantations is crucial. To tackle this challenge, we developed a novel approach based on multimodal 3D imaging and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based image processing that allowed a noninvasive diagnosis of inner tissues in living plants. The method was successfully applied to the grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) in vineyards where sustainability was threatened by trunk diseases, while the sanitary status of vines cannot be ascertained without injuring the plants. By combining MRI and X-ray CT 3D imaging with an automatic voxel classification, we could discriminate intact, degraded, and white rot tissues with a mean global accuracy of over 91%. Each imaging modality contribution to tissue detection was evaluated, and we identified quantitative structural and physiological markers characterizing wood degradation steps. The combined study of inner tissue distribution versus external foliar symptom history demonstrated that white rot and intact tissue contents are key measurements in evaluating vines sanitary status. We finally proposed a model for an accurate trunk disease diagnosis in grapevine. This work opens new routes for precision agriculture and in-situ monitoring of wood quality and plant health across plant species.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsブドウ樹内部組織と病害状態を、MRI・X線CT・自動ボクセル分類によって非破壊的に定量する手法を開発・評価しており、植物表現型取得が研究の中心である。
abstractwe developed a novel approach based on multimodal 3D imaging and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based image processing that allowed a noninvasive diagnosis of inner tissues in living plants
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's imaging datasets (MRI, X-ray CT, photographic volumes, annotations) are only available 'upon reasonable request', but the authors' extended Trainable Segmentation plugin used for the machine-learning voxel classification is explicitly open-source on GitHub.Code · publicFernandez et al. 24
DATA AND CODE AVAILABILITY
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding
author upon reasonable request.
The extension of the Trainable Segmentation plugin is open-source, and available as a fork of Trainable
Segmentation on GitHub: https://github.com/Rocsg/Trainable_Segmentation/tree/Hyperweka.
.
CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license
perpetuity. It is made available under a
preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in
The copyright holder for this
this version posted February 3, 2023.
;
https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.09.495457
doOpen asset ↗Rocsg/Trainable_Segmentation · Hyperwekapdf-raw-page:24 lines:1-16Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Crossref · checked 14 Sept 2026
MaizeField / plotMesh / voxelLiDAR / point cloudRootWhole plant / canopy / plot / field2D/3D reconstructionRoot system architecture
Understanding root traits is essential to improve water uptake, increase nitrogen capture and accelerate carbon sequestration from the atmosphere. High-throughput phenotyping to quantify root traits for deeper field-grown roots remains a challenge, however. Recently developed open-source methods use 3D reconstruction algorithms to build 3D models of plant roots from multiple 2D images and can extract root traits and phenotypes. Most of these methods rely on automated image orientation (Structure from Motion)[1] and dense image matching (Multiple View Stereo) algorithms to produce a 3D point cloud or mesh model from 2D images. Until now the performance of these methods when applied to field-grown roots has not been compared tested commonly used open-source pipelines on a test panel of twelve contrasting maize genotypes grown in real field conditions[2-6]. We compare the 3D point clouds produced in terms of number of points, computation time and model surface density. This comparison study provides insight into the performance of different open-source pipelines for maize root phenotyping and illuminates trade-offs between 3D model quality and performance cost for future high-throughput 3D root phenotyping.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D画像再構成パイプラインを比較・評価し、圃場トウモロコシ根の表現型取得性能を検証する研究であり、フェノタイピング手法が中心です。
titleComparison of open-source image-based reconstruction pipelines for 3D root phenotyping of field-grown maize
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's data availability statement provides two public, paper-specific assets: a GitHub repository with the scripts used to run the 3D reconstruction pipeline comparison, and a Cyverse archive containing all 60 resulting 3D root point cloud models from the twelve field-grown maize genotypes.Code · publicDATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
GitHub link for all the scripts for running the test:
https://github.com/Computational-Plant-Science/3D_review_scripts/tree/master
Cyverse link to all the 3D model results:
https://data.cyverse.org/dav-anon/iplant/home/lsx1980/3D_model_compare.zip
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research was supported by the NSF CAREER Award No. 1845760 and USDOE ARPA-E ROOTS
Award Number DE-AR0000821 to A.B. Any Opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in thisOpen asset ↗Computational-Plant-Science/3D_review_scriptspdf-raw-page:6 lines:1-40Code / dataset availability confirmedEurope PMC · OpenAlex · Crossref · checked 8 Sept 2026
Selection for yield at high planting density has reshaped the leaf canopy of maize, improving photosynthetic productivity in high density settings. Further optimization of canopy architecture may be possible. However, measuring leaf angles, the widely studied component trait of leaf canopy architecture, by hand is a labor and time intensive process. Here, we use multiple, calibrated, 2D images to reconstruct the 3D geometry of individual sorghum plants using a voxel carving based algorithm. Automatic skeletonization and segmentation of these 3D geometries enable quantification of the angle of each leaf for each plant. The resulting measurements are both heritable and correlated with manually collected leaf angles. This automated and scaleable reconstruction approach was employed to measure leaf-by-leaf angles for a population of 366 sorghum plants at multiple time points, resulting in 971 successful reconstructions and 3,376 leaf angle measurements from individual leaves. A genome wide association study conducted using aggregated leaf angle data identified a known large effect leaf angle gene, several previously identified leaf angle QTL from a sorghum NAM population, and novel signals. Genome wide association studies conducted separately for three individual sorghum leaves identified a number of the same signals, a previously unreported signal shared across multiple leaves, and signals near the sorghum orthologs of two maize genes known to influence leaf angle. Automated measurement of individual leaves and mapping variants associated with leaf angle reduce the barriers to engineering ideal canopy architectures in sorghum and other grain crops.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D画像再構成、骨格化、セグメンテーションによりソルガム個葉角度を自動定量する手法が研究の中心であり、手作業測定との検証と大規模適用も行っている。
abstractwe use multiple, calibrated, 2D images to reconstruct the 3D geometry of individual sorghum plants using a voxel carving based algorithm.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's Data Availability statement provides three public, paper-specific assets: the voxel carving/skeletonization reconstruction code on GitHub, the raw RGB phenotyping images on Zenodo, and the phenotypic data, GWAS result files, and figure code on GitHub.Code · publicThe code for reconstruction and skeletonization is available at GitHub: https://github.com/cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarving .Open asset ↗cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarvinglines:351-493Code · publicThe phenotypic data, GWAS result files and code for main figures are available at GitHub: https://github.com/mtross2/Sorghum-3D-Reconstruction .Open asset ↗mtross2/Sorghum-3D-Reconstructionlines:351-493Code / dataset availability confirmedbioRxiv · Europe PMC · OpenAlex · Crossref · checked 8 Sept 2026
Selection for yield at high planting density has reshaped the leaf canopy of maize, improving photosynthetic productivity in high density settings. Further optimization of canopy architecture may be possible. However, measuring leaf angles, the widely studied component trait of leaf canopy architecture, by hand is a labor and time intensive process. Here, we use multiple, calibrated, 2D images to reconstruct the 3D geometry of individual sorghum plants using a voxel carving based algorithm. Automatic skeletonization and segmentation of these 3D geometries enable quantification of the angle of each leaf for each plant. The resulting measurements are both heritable and correlated with manually collected leaf angles. This automated and scaleable reconstruction approach was employed to measure leaf-by-leaf angles for a population of 366 sorghum plants at multiple time points, resulting in 971 successful reconstructions and 3,376 leaf angle measurements from individual leaves. A genome wide association study conducted using aggregated leaf angle data identified a known large effect leaf angle gene, several previously identified leaf angle QTL from a sorghum NAM population, and novel signals. Genome wide association studies conducted separately for three individual sorghum leaves identified a number of the same signals, a previously unreported signal shared across multiple leaves, and signals near the sorghum orthologs of two maize genes known to influence leaf angle. Automated measurement of individual leaves and mapping variants associated with leaf angle reduce the barriers to engineering ideal canopy architectures in sorghum and other grain crops.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods複数の較正2D画像から3D植物形状を再構成し、葉ごとの葉角度を自動抽出する手法が研究の中心であり、遺伝性・手動測定との相関による検証も行っている。
abstractwe use multiple, calibrated, 2D images to reconstruct the 3D geometry of individual sorghum plants using a voxel carving based algorithm.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's Data and Code availability statement provides three paper-specific public assets: the voxel carving/skeletonization code (GitHub cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarving), the raw sorghum images analyzed (Zenodo deposit 10.5281/zenodo.4426620), and the phenotypic data, GWAS result files, and figure code (GitHub mtCode · publicThe code for reconstruction and skeletonization is hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/cropsinsilico/
SorghumVoxelCarving.Open asset ↗pdf-page:9 lines:1-59Code · publicPhenotypic data, GWAS result files and code for main figures are located on GitHub:
https://github.com/mtross2/Sorghum-3D-ReconstructionOpen asset ↗mtross2/Sorghum-3D-Reconstructionpdf-page:9 lines:1-59Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Crossref · Europe PMC · checked 8 Sept 2026
High throughput image-based plant phenotyping facilitates the extraction of morphological and biophysical traits of a large number of plants non-invasively in a relatively short time. It facilitates the computation of advanced phenotypes by considering the plant as a single object (holistic phenotypes) or its components, i.e., leaves and the stem (component phenotypes). The architectural complexity of plants increases over time due to variations in self-occlusions and phyllotaxy, i.e., arrangements of leaves around the stem. One of the central challenges to computing phenotypes from 2-dimensional (2D) single view images of plants, especially at the advanced vegetative stage in presence of self-occluding leaves, is that the information captured in 2D images is incomplete, and hence, the computed phenotypes are inaccurate. We introduce a novel algorithm to compute 3-dimensional (3D) plant phenotypes from multiview images using voxel-grid reconstruction of the plant (3DPhenoMV). The paper also presents a novel method to reliably detect and separate the individual leaves and the stem from the 3D voxel-grid of the plant using voxel overlapping consistency check and point cloud clustering techniques. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, we introduce the University of Nebraska-Lincoln 3D Plant Phenotyping Dataset (UNL-3DPPD). A generic taxonomy of 3D image-based plant phenotypes are also presented to promote 3D plant phenotyping research. A subset of these phenotypes are computed using computer vision algorithms with discussion of their significance in the context of plant science. The central contributions of the paper are (a) an algorithm for 3D voxel-grid reconstruction of maize plants at the advanced vegetative stages using images from multiple 2D views; (b) a generic taxonomy of 3D image-based plant phenotypes and a public benchmark dataset, i.e., UNL-3DPPD, to promote the development of 3D image-based plant phenotyping research; and (c) novel voxel overlapping consistency check and point cloud clustering techniques to detect and isolate individual leaves and stem of the maize plants to compute the component phenotypes. Detailed experimental analyses demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method, and also show the potential of 3D phenotypes to explain the morphological characteristics of plants regulated by genetic and environmental interactions.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methods3D画像再構成と葉・茎分離による植物表現型抽出アルゴリズムを開発し、ベンチマークデータセットも提示する、植物フェノタイピング手法が中心の研究。
abstractWe introduce a novel algorithm to compute 3-dimensional (3D) plant phenotypes from multiview images using voxel-grid reconstruction of the plant (3DPhenoMV).
Reproduction assets foundThe paper introduces the UNL-3DPPD benchmark dataset (multiview maize/cotton plant images and calibration checkerboards) and states it is publicly available at the authors' plantvision.unl.edu site. No separate analysis code deposit is explicitly stated.Dataset · publicThe datasets generated for this study are publicly available from https://plantvision.unl.edu/dataset .Open asset ↗plantvision.unl.edulines:481-518Code / dataset availability confirmedOpenAlex · Europe PMC · checked 9 Sept 2026
Changes in canopy architecture traits have been shown to contribute to yield increases. Optimizing both light interception and light interception efficiency of agricultural crop canopies will be essential to meeting the growing food needs. Canopy architecture is inherently three-dimensional (3D), but many approaches to measuring canopy architecture component traits treat the canopy as a two-dimensional (2D) structure to make large scale measurement, selective breeding, and gene identification logistically feasible. We develop a high throughput voxel carving strategy to reconstruct 3D representations of sorghum from a small number of RGB photos. Our approach builds on the voxel carving algorithm to allow for fully automatic reconstruction of hundreds of plants. It was employed to generate 3D reconstructions of individual plants within a sorghum association population at the late vegetative stage of development. Light interception parameters estimated from these reconstructions enabled the identification of known and previously unreported loci controlling light interception efficiency in sorghum. The approach is generalizable and scalable, and it enables 3D reconstructions from existing plant high throughput phenotyping datasets. We also propose a set of best practices to increase 3D reconstructions' accuracy.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsソルガムのRGB画像から3D植物体を自動再構成し、光 interception 特性を推定する高スループット手法の開発が中心であるため。
abstractWe develop a high throughput voxel carving strategy to reconstruct 3D representations of sorghum from a small number of RGB photos.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper's voxel carving analysis code is explicitly stated as publicly available on GitHub. The raw images, 3D reconstructions, and trait values were only promised for future DataDryad deposit with no URL, so they are not actionable. The FigShare deposit contains genetic marker data (molecular omics), not phenotypingCode · publicThe code is available at https://github.com/cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarving .Open asset ↗https://github.com/cropsinsilico/SorghumVoxelCarvinglines:289-474Code / dataset availability confirmedEurope PMC · OpenAlex · checked 9 Sept 2026
Background Recent advances in image-based plant phenotyping have improved our capability to study vegetative stage growth dynamics. However, more complex agronomic traits such as inflorescence architecture (IA), which predominantly contributes to grain crop yield are more challenging to quantify and hence are relatively less explored. Previous efforts to estimate inflorescence-related traits using image-based phenotyping have been limited to destructive end-point measurements. Development of non-destructive inflorescence phenotyping platforms could accelerate the discovery of the phenotypic variation with respect to inflorescence dynamics and mapping of the underlying genes regulating critical yield components. Results The major objective of this study is to evaluate post-fertilization development and growth dynamics of inflorescence at high spatial and temporal resolution in rice. For this, we developed the P anicle I maging Plat form (PI-Plat) to comprehend multi-dimensional features of IA in a non-destructive manner. We used 11 rice genotypes to capture multi-view images of primary panicle on weekly basis after the fertilization. These images were used to reconstruct a 3D point cloud of the panicle, which enabled us to extract digital traits such as voxel count and color intensity. We found that the voxel count of developing panicles is positively correlated with seed number and weight at maturity. The voxel count from developing panicles projected overall volumes that increased during the grain filling phase, wherein quantification of color intensity estimated the rate of panicle maturation. Our 3D based phenotyping solution showed superior performance compared to conventional 2D based approaches. Conclusions For harnessing the potential of the existing genetic resources, we need a comprehensive understanding of the genotype-to-phenotype relationship. Relatively low-cost sequencing platforms have facilitated high-throughput genotyping, while phenotyping, especially for complex traits, has posed major challenges for crop improvement. PI-Plat offers a low cost and high-resolution platform to phenotype inflorescence-related traits using 3D reconstruction-based approach. Further, the non-destructive nature of the platform facilitates analyses of the same panicle at multiple developmental time points, which can be utilized to explore the genetic variation for dynamic inflorescence traits in cereals.
Why it matches plant phenotyping methodsイネ穂の非破壊3D画像再構成とデジタル形質抽出を行うPI-Platを開発・比較評価しており、植物フェノタイピング手法が研究の中心である。
abstractThese images were used to reconstruct a 3D point cloud of the panicle, which enabled us to extract digital traits such as voxel count and color intensity.
Reproduction assets foundThe paper publicly shares (1) a partial raw image dataset on a UNL Box repository and (2) the authors' PI-Plat Panicle-3D-Reconstruction workflow scripts at wrchr.org. Full raw images and the manual phenotyping dataset are only available on request, so those portions would be request_only, but the two public assets areDataset · publicRaw image data is large and hence only part of them is shared for user testing on a UNL Box repository ( https://unl.box.com/s/g0bof1mpfp33hn66b2qabrk9kiwmhbzv ).Open asset ↗unl.box.comlines:117-127