Project Progress

• Data
  After meticulous collecting of data on Plummer's island for over two years, and carefully photographing this and older specimens at the Smithsonian Institute, we have assembled an electronic dataset. This data comprising of high-resolution leaf and voucher images will be useful to not just botanists, and for the development of an electronic field guide, but also to the computer science community to test the performance of pattern matching algorithms.
  


• Algorithms
  We have invented inner distance shape context (IDSC), a robust deformation invariant method to match shapes. Using the shapes of leaves, this gives excellent results on species identification from leaf images. We have deployed this algorithm in the first version of our electronic field guide prototype.
  
  We are also working on other algorithms that use more features from the leaf images, when shape might not be a good feature to use. We already have code that gives good results on test datasets and are in the process of making this algorithm more robust for good field performance.
  


• Prototype
  Using the data collected, and the algorithms developed, our UI team has designed a prototype that should be an electronic replacement for field guides, to be used by botanists on field trips. This prototype is currently being tested on Plummer's Island. Below are some pictures of our fieldguide in use.