COMPUTER STEREO PLOTTING FOR 3-D RECONSTRUCTION OF A MAIZE CANOPY

A method for building a three-dimensional (3-D) model of a vegetation canopy is presented. It is based on stereovision, the purpose of which is to reconstruct scenes in 3-D space from a pair of images taken fro m different viewpoints. We applied this method to maize photographs re corded from above by two photographic cameras and obtained a 3-D model of the vegetation. This model enables us to analyse the canopy geomet rical structure and to carry out different simulation procedures. Esti mations of leaf position and orientation, and of the leaf area distrib ution, are shown. Possible ways to automate and accelerate the process ing, and some applications, are discussed.