Entries |
Document | Title | Date |
20080212842 | Two Colour Vision System - A vision system is described for viewing the end face of product mounted in a machine which in use produces measurements relating to the area of the end face and of at least one constituent part of the product which is visible in the end face. The system comprises means for illuminating the end face and a video camera for producing a video signal from an image of the illuminated end face. The end face is illuminated by light of two predominantly different wavelengths. One wavelength illuminates an area which contains both the end face and surrounding parts of the machine, while light of the other wavelength from a laser source produces a pattern of parallel spaced apart lines of light of the said other wavelength. A memory stores information on the components of the machine which in use extend into the field of view of the scanning means, and signals obtained from the stored information are employed to gate the video signal to exclude video signal corresponding to regions of the field view which are known not to contain any part of the product end face. The parallel lines cross the end face at a specific given angle, and parallel lines in the field of view at other angles indicate regions in the field of view which are not part of the end face of the product. Gating excludes video signal of parallel lines in the image which are not at the specific angle and of parallel lines crossing flat regions of the machine parallel to the end face of the product, to leave a residual video signal corresponding to the end face, from which an electronic mask is generated which represents the extent of the product end face. A full colour video signal of the field of view is gated by the mask. The vision system forms part of a product slicing machine and measurements and/or dimensional values obtained from the video signal control the thickness of the next slice to be cut and are also sent to slice and pack grade-level decision logic, to control down-line gates. | 09-04-2008 |
20080212843 | PET EYE CORRECTION - Correction of color defects in a pupil represented in a digital image is disclosed. For example, a location in the pupil within the digital image is identified, and a target color to be corrected is computed based at least upon an analysis of pixels within a first region in which the location resides. Defect pixels in a second region in which the location resides are identified, the defect pixels being identified as having a pixel color similar to the target color. The defect pixels are color-corrected. For pupils that appear all white, appropriately configured pupil images are inserted therein. | 09-04-2008 |
20080219511 | FLUORESCENCE OBSERVATION APPARATUS - Provided is a fluorescence observation apparatus that enables efficient data acquisition by simplifying the positioning process of a small laboratory animal and that enables easy comparative examination of many images. The fluorescence observation apparatus includes a display unit configured to display a plurality of combined images arrayed in at least one direction, each of the combined images being generated by combining a bright-field image and a fluorescence image of a small laboratory animal; an outline-extracting unit configured to extract an outline of the small laboratory animal in the bright-field image included in each combined image; and an image-position adjusting unit configured to adjust the display positions of the combined images such that the outlines of the small laboratory animal extracted by the outline-extracting unit match each other in a direction orthogonal to the arrayed direction. | 09-11-2008 |
20080219512 | FLUORESCENCE OBSERVATION APPARATUS - It is possible to efficiently perform data acquisition by simplifying an operation for positioning a small laboratory animal, and comparative observation of multiple images is straightforward. The invention provides a fluorescence observation apparatus including an image storage unit for storing a plurality of pairs of bright-field images and fluorescence images of a small laboratory animal in such a manner that relative positions thereof are aligned; a display unit for displaying the plurality of fluorescence images stored in the image storage unit so as to be arrayed in at least one direction; an outline extracting unit for extracting an outline shape of the small laboratory animal in each bright-field image; and an image-position adjusting unit for adjusting a display position of each associated fluorescence image so that the outline shapes of the small laboratory animal extracted by the outline extracting unit are aligned with each other in a direction orthogonal to the arrayed direction. | 09-11-2008 |
20080247603 | PORTABLE TOOL FOR DETERMINING MEAT QUALITY - A system, method and apparatus for grading of meat such as bovine, porcine, sheep, horse or poultry meat among others. The device of this invention corresponds to a portable tool, which is approached to meat specimens to be analyzed, and captures an image. The tool then objectively relates the image to meat quality parameters by means of an image analyzing method. The present invention solves in a practical, fast and satisfactory way the problem of determining meat quality parameters such as texture, color, and contained intramuscular fat percentage. | 10-09-2008 |
20080253618 | PROCESS FOR NORMALIZING IMAGES OR OTHER DATA LAYERS - A method of processing vegetation data including the steps of identifying data relating to an agricultural field, segregating areas of predetermined development patterns and prescribing application rates of an agricultural compound. The identifying step includes identifying data relating to an agricultural field representative of areas of predetermined development patterns of vegetation in the field. The segregating step includes segregating the areas of the predetermined development patterns thereby defining segregated areas, other areas in the field being non-segregated areas. The prescribing step including prescribing application rates of an agricultural compound to the non-segregated areas dependent on at least one attribute determined from the data. | 10-16-2008 |
20080273760 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LIVESTOCK ASSESSMENT - A method and apparatus for capturing a three-dimensional representation of livestock involves simultaneously imaging the reflections of a light source from various portions of the animal on a two-dimensional pixel array and deriving range data for each pixel. The range data from the plurality of pixels is used to generate a three-dimensional representation of the animal for phenotype or other conformation assessments. | 11-06-2008 |
20080285810 | Method for characterizing the density and cross-section morphology of trees - A method is provided for reliably determining anatomical properties of a tree having a plurality of growth rings spaced from each other in a radial direction. The method involves preparing a sample from a tree to be analyzed, and preparing an image of the sample at a resolution sufficient to analyze at least one of the earlywood and latewood portions of one or more rings. The image is used to determine at least one anatomical property of the sample based on the image, the anatomical property being selected from the group consisting of sample density, tracheid wall thickness, and tracheid exterior dimension. | 11-20-2008 |
20080304710 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROCESSING IMAGE OF AT LEAST ONE SEEDLING - In one embodiment, a method of processing a source image of at least one seedling may include: a) segmenting the source image into at least a foreground portion and a background portion to form a segmented image, b) skeletonizing the segmented image to form a skeletonized image, the skeletonized image including a skeleton, c) dividing the skeleton into a plurality of segments, d) identifying alternate separations of the skeleton, each alternate separation including at least two groups, each group including at least one segment and potentially relating to a individual seedling, and e) evaluating a plurality of the alternate separations as a function of at least one of: 1) individual angles defined by connecting segments of corresponding groups, 2) combined angles defined by connecting segments of corresponding groups, 3) length defined by connecting segments of corresponding groups, and 4) unused segments. | 12-11-2008 |
20080304711 | METHOD OF PREDICTING CROP YIELD LOSS DUE TO N-DEFICIENCY - A method for determining the yield loss of a crop using remote sensor data is described. The yield loss is determined using the reflectivity of green light by the crop canopy measured from remote sensor data such as an aerial photograph that is digitized and spatially referenced to the field's longitude and latitude. Green pixel values from the aerial photograph, expressed relative to green pixel values from well-fertilized areas of the field, are transformed to yield losses using a linear transformation that was developed using empirical data. A similar method is described to determine recommended nitrogen fertilization rates for the crop fields. The yield loss data is useful for nitrogen fertilization management, as it allows a producer of crops to weigh the expense of fertilization against the loss of revenue due to yield loss. | 12-11-2008 |
20080310684 | Data Acquisition For Classifying Slaughtered Animal Bodies And For Their Qualitative And Quantitative Determination - A non-invasive method is described for identifying contours with complex structures having an error recognition rate tending towards zero, which method can be used to distinguish and identify features of a slaughtered animal body with respect to each other, said method being utilised on the basis of a characteristic piece in particular to determine, by means of image processing, data for calculating the muscle-meat percentage, the trade classification and the associated trade value and market value, and also to rate the quality of slaughtered animal bodies, taking into account legal requirements. | 12-18-2008 |
20090074253 | Method and Apparatus for the Automatic Grading of Condition of Livestock - A method of and apparatus for grading a characteristic of an animal is described. The animal is guided to a detection area whereupon an image of the back of the animal is captured. Analysis of the image identifies anatomical points and determines angles at these points. The angles are then used to calculate a grading for a characteristic of the animal. An embodiment is presented for automating the determination of body score condition in dairy cows using seven angles determined at three anatomical points from an image over the back of the cow. | 03-19-2009 |
20090080706 | MACHINE IMAGING APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DETECTING FOREIGN MATERIALS - A combined X-ray and laser 3D imaging system for food safety inspection, which uses a 3D laser subsystem to get accurate depth information, which is further combined with an x-ray image to achieve accurate physical contamination detection in poultry and other meat products. A unique calibration model is used to calibrate the x-ray and laser 3D imaging systems at the same time. And a nested multi-thread software structure is implemented to prevent data conflict and ensure fully use of system resources during the physical contamination detection of the poultry and other meat products. | 03-26-2009 |
20090087033 | Method and system for wholesomeness inspection of freshly slaughtered chickens on a processing line - An imaging system containing an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device detector and line-scan spectrograph is used for identifying wholesome and unwholesome freshly slaughtered chicken carcasses on high-speed commercial chicken processing lines. Multispectral imaging algorithms allow for real-time online identification of wholesome and unwholesome chicken carcasses. | 04-02-2009 |
20090136093 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DETECTING THERMAL ANOMALIES - A system and method for detecting a thermal anomaly in humans and/or livestock. In one embodiment, the system includes an image capturing component that captures a visual image of incident light in a screening area, the image capturing component further operable to determine a first coordinate in the captured image, such as the location of a person's eyes. The system further includes a radiation capturing component operable to capture a thermal image of incident radiation in the screening area, the radiation capturing component further operable to determine an analysis area in the captured thermal image based upon the first coordinate in the captured light image. Finally, the system includes a processing component for determining thermal characteristics about the analysis area. As a result, if the thermal characteristics correspond to an alarm event, then an alarm may be triggered and the person or animal may be isolated for further health screening. | 05-28-2009 |
20090154776 | Optical Imaging Clinical Sampler - A clinical sampling system including a reader capable of optically imaging a test cartridge presented thereto and then automatically determining the presence and concentration of a target compound in a liquid sample placed on the test cartridge. The reader includes an optical imaging unit for illuminating, imaging, and interpreting the test cartridge. The test cartridge houses a reaction strip having a control region and a sample region that reacts to a liquid sample placed on the strip. The presence and concentration of the target compound are interpreted by determining the relative reflected intensities of the control region and sample region and calculating the ratio of the reflected intensities relative to the reflected intensity of the background. | 06-18-2009 |
20090208064 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION USING IRIS IMAGES - A system for animal identification includes: an image capture apparatus for obtaining an image of an eye of an animal including a pupil region and an iris region; and a template generation apparatus. The template generation apparatus is for: extracting a set of pixel data from the image, the set of pixel data representing an upper region of interest of the iris region above the pupil region and a lower region of interest of the iris region below the pupil region, the upper region of interest and the lower region of interest have parallel side boundaries that are spaced apart a distance that is substantially independent of a degree of dilation of the pupil region; and transforming the set of pixel data representing the upper region of interest and the lower region of interest into a template of the upper region of interest and the lower region of interest. | 08-20-2009 |
20090214084 | Remote Sensing Analysis of Forest Disturbances - The present invention provides systems and methods to automatically analyze Landsat satellite data of forests. The present invention can easily be used to monitor any type of forest disturbance such as from selective logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, natural hazards (fire, wind events, storms), etc. The present invention provides a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote sensing analysis of such disturbances. | 08-27-2009 |
20090274340 | SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR USE IN ASSESSING FAT AND MUSCLE DEPTH - Methods, systems and devices are implemented in connection with measuring subcutaneous fat and loin depth in a portion of muscle tissue. Consistent with one such method a probe is presented to the portion of muscle tissue. The probe produces a response-provoking signal in the muscle tissue used to determine the fat and loin depth in the portion of muscle tissue. | 11-05-2009 |
20090274341 | SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR USE IN FILTER-BASED ASSESSMENT OF CARCASS GRADING - Methods, systems and devices are implemented in connection with measuring the relative content of intramuscular fat (IMF) in a portion of muscle tissue. Consistent with one such method a probe is presented to the portion of muscle tissue. The probe produces a response-provoking signal in the muscle tissue. A resulting signal is used to determine the relative content of IMF in the portion of muscle tissue as a function of a selected filter. | 11-05-2009 |
20090285452 | UNIFIED SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANIMAL BEHAVIOR CHARACTERIZATION IN HOME CAGES USING VIDEO ANALYSIS - Systems and methods for finding the position and shape of an animal using video are disclosed. The invention includes a system with a video camera coupled to a computer in which the computer is configured to automatically provide animal segmentation and identification, animal motion tracking (for moving animals), animal posture classification, and behavior identification. In a preferred embodiment, the present invention may use background subtraction for animal identification and tracking, and a combination of decision tree classification and rule-based classification for posture and behavior identification. Thus, the present invention is capable of automatically monitoring a video image to identify, track and classify the actions of various animals and the animal's movements within the image. The image may be provided in real time or from storage. | 11-19-2009 |
20090296992 | UNIFIED SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANIMAL BEHAVIOR CHARACTERIZATION FROM TOP VIEW USING VIDEO ANALYSIS - In general, the present invention is directed to systems and methods for finding the position and shape of an animal using video. The invention includes a system with a video camera coupled to a computer in which the computer is configured to automatically provide animal segmentation and identification, animal motion tracking (for moving animals), animal feature points and segments identification, and behavior identification. In a preferred embodiment, the present invention may use background subtraction for animal identification and tracking, and a combination of decision tree classification and rule-based classification for feature points and segments and behavior identification. Thus, the present invention is capable of automatically monitoring a video image to identify, track and classify the actions of various animals and the animal's movements within the image. The image may be provided in real time or from storage. The invention is particularly useful for monitoring and classifying animal behavior for testing drugs and genetic mutations, but may be used in any of a number of other surveillance applications. | 12-03-2009 |
20090310826 | Evaluation of Meat Tenderness - The method and apparatus for estimating the tenderness of meat comprises scanning a sample of meat through an x-ray beam; detecting or measuring the transmitted x-ray radiation through the meat sample; relating the transmitted x-ray radiation to a characteristic of the shear force of the meat sample; and assessing the tenderness of the meat sample from the characteristic of the shear force. | 12-17-2009 |
20100027849 | Methods and Systems for Administering a Drug Program - Systems and methods are described that provide a fast and simple way of administering a drug program related to an animal. Specifically, systems are provided that can receive, compile and analyze information regarding the condition of an organ in a form that is readily readable, transferable to others, and associated with, or linked to, other information such as the presence or absence of an administered drug, combination of drugs, or drug program. | 02-04-2010 |
20100040260 | REMOTE SENSING AND PROBABILISTIC SAMPLING BASED METHOD FOR DETERMINING THE CARBON DIOXIDE VOLUME OF A FOREST - A remote sensing and probabilistic sampling based method for determining carbon dioxide volume of a forest can correlate aerial data, such as LiDAR, CIR, and/or Hyperspectral data with actual sampled and measured ground data to facilitate obtainment, e.g., prediction, of an accurate forest inventory, and corresponding carbon dioxide volume thereof. | 02-18-2010 |
20100054543 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DIAGNOSING AND TREATING A PEST INFESTED BODY - According to one aspect, the invention provides a method for detecting pest infestation within a body. The method comprises the steps of a) providing an imaging system comprising at least a radiation source, a detector, a processing station and a display monitor; b) positioning at least a section of the body between the radiation source and the detector; c) acquiring a first image of said section of said body; d) acquiring at least one second image of the section of the body; e) removing the common portion of the images by subtracting the first image from the second image, thereby resulting in a digitally subtracted image; and f) observing determining from the digitally subtracted image and determining whether at least one pest is present within the body. Pest infestation may be detected without physical contact with the tree. | 03-04-2010 |
20100098298 | PROCESS FOR CHECKING THE QUALITY OF LOGS - A process for checking the quality of logs, each log having a front surface ( | 04-22-2010 |
20100119119 | AUTOMATED SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SCREENING ZEBRAFISH - Systems and methods for screening zebrafish comprising, a storage device for at least temporarily storing an image of a zebrafish to be screened; a zebrafish atlas; and an operating device that automatically screens the zebrafish at least in part by automatically comparing one or more anatomical features of the zebrafish to one or more standards. | 05-13-2010 |
20100135537 | METHOD AND EQUIPMENT FOR EVALUATION OF RECYCLED PULP AND PULP - The non-destructive method is for measurement of recycled pulp or pulp immersed in suspension that enables real-time or on-line evaluation of particles in recycled pulp or pulp, especially for evaluation of particles including inks contained in recycled or de-inked pulp for their characteristics related to sizes, shapes, areas, amount, concentration, absorption coefficients, spectral characteristics such as color locus (L*, a*, b* values) and parameters, which are equivalent to an effective residual ink content (ERIC) or the ink elimination (IE) or detachment (ID), but independent of the size distribution of inks. The method can additionally be used for real-time or on-line recognizing inks from the other particles and distinguishing inks, which are already detached from or still attached to fibers and identification of the pulp fibers and fiber-based particles in recycled pulp or pulp from the non-fiber particles. | 06-03-2010 |
20100215221 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR ANALYZING BERRIES - Method for analyzing berries, characterised in that: berries are arranged on an analysis plate, an image of the berries is recorded, the image consisting of pixels of at least one component of an elementary colour, the contours of the berries are identified, and geometric and/or colorimetric characteristics of the berries are determined. The number of berries can then be determined, or a volume, a surface area, a surface area to volume ratio, and a characteristic concentration for each berry can be determined, in addition to an average, for all of the pixels inside the contour of a defined berry, of the values of a component of an elementary colour of a component of interest. A device for implementing the method is also disclosed. The invention especially relates to viticulture and to the analysis of the maturity of the grape. | 08-26-2010 |
20100215222 | Method And System For Removing Undesired Plant Parts - Method and system for removing undesired plant parts ( | 08-26-2010 |
20100303304 | X-RAY IMAGING - An X-ray scanning apparatus for locating a contaminant in a product, the apparatus comprising: means for generating an X-ray image of the product; means for assigning a grey scale value to a plurality of pixels; means for identifying a plurality of suspect pixels; means, which for each suspect pixel: selects two neighbouring pixels in a first direction lying on opposed sides of the suspect pixel and determines which of the first direction pixels has the lowest grey value; selects two neighbouring pixels in a second direction lying on opposed sides of the suspect pixel and determines which of the second direction pixels has the lowest grey value; determines a first direction difference value by taking the grey value difference between the lowest grey value first direction pixel and the grey value of the suspect; determines a second direction difference value by taking the grey value difference between the lowest grey value second direction pixel and the grey value of the suspect; determines a first direction score from the first direction difference value; determines a second direction score from the second direction difference value; compares said scores with a threshold value; and identifies the suspect pixel as representing a contaminant if said threshold value is exceeded. | 12-02-2010 |
20100322483 | System and method for automatic identification of wildlife - A system and method for automatically identifying wildlife in the field is disclosed that provides for identification of observed wildlife specimens without requiring the exercise of skill or judgment by the observer. The system and method for automatically identifying wildlife according to the invention also provides for automatic and easy to use identification of wildlife specimens in the field without distracting the user from wildlife observation. Wildlife identifications generated by the disclosed system and method may be easily stored in the field along with digital images of wildlife specimens, and corresponding location, time, date and elevation information, which may be easily transmitted and added to a wildlife identification database to allow compilation and archival of accumulated wildlife identification information from field observations of wildlife specimens. | 12-23-2010 |
20100329515 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR USE IN CHARACTERIZING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS - A method is provided for use in optimizing ethanol yield from agricultural products. The method includes imaging agricultural products to determine predicted ethanol yields for the agricultural products and assigning characterizations to the imaged agricultural products based on their predicted ethanol yields. An apparatus is provided for collecting, retaining, and/or transporting bulk quantities of agricultural products. The apparatus includes an analyzer configured to image the agricultural products for use in determining the predicted ethanol yields. And, a system is provided for tracking and/or monitoring agricultural products. The system includes an analyzer configured to image the agricultural products for use in determining the predicted ethanol yields, a central processor configured to communicate with the analyzer to thereby link the imaged agricultural products with their predicted ethanol yields, and a telecommunications link coupling the analyzer to the central processor for allowing the communication between the analyzer and the central processor. | 12-30-2010 |
20110069872 | ARTIFICIAL VISION INSPECTION METHOD AND SYSTEM - An artificial vision inspection method and system which takes photographs, on either sides, of poultry or other meat at various stages of processing as they pass by on hanging racks. The method and system then sorts the meat according to quality parameters selected by the user, from presence or absence of parts to size to coloration. | 03-24-2011 |
20110110562 | REMOTE SENSING AND PROBABILISTIC SAMPLING BASED FOREST INVENTORY METHOD - A remote sensing and probabilistic sampling based forest inventory method can correlate aerial data, such as LiDAR, CIR, and/or Hyperspectral data with actual sampled and measured ground data to facilitate obtainment, e.g., prediction, of a more accurate forest inventory. The resulting inventory can represent an empirical description of the height, DBH and species of every tree within the sample area. The use of probabilistic sampling methods can greatly improve the accuracy and reliability of the forest inventory. | 05-12-2011 |
20110110563 | Method and system for automatically grading beef quality - A method of automatically grading beef quality by analyzing a digital image is provided. The method includes: an image acquiring step of acquiring a color image of beef using a CCD camera; a region separating step of separating a lean region from the acquired image; a boundary extracting step of extracting a boundary line of the lean region; a boundary smoothing step of smoothing the boundary line extracted in the boundary extracting step; a boundary correcting step of correcting an indented portion and a protruded portion included in the boundary line having been subjected to the boundary smoothing step; a grading region determining step of determining a grading region on the basis of the boundary line corrected in the boundary correcting step; and a grading step of grading the beef quality on the basis of the image of the grading region. | 05-12-2011 |
20110116688 | AUTOMATIC MEASUREMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PLANT FEATURES, AND RECORDING MEDIUM THEREOF - An automatic measurement system for plant features includes: at least one photographic device, for photographing a plant in a container, so as to generate a top view image and a side view image; and an operation processing device, electrically connected to the photographic devices, and at least including an image processing module and a storage unit. The image processing module analyzes at least one of the top view image and the side view image by using at least one image processing procedure and at least one analysis rule, so as to generate at least one feature data corresponding to appearance features of the plant, and records the at least one feature data in the storage unit. | 05-19-2011 |
20110135161 | Apparatus and Methods for Automated Phenotypic Screening of Plant Genotypes - Automated systems and methods for screening individual plants for increased tolerance or sensitivity to various conditions are provided. | 06-09-2011 |
20110150289 | DEVICE OF DETERMINING UNIFORMITY OF A BATCH OF SEEDS - A method and device for determining by non-destructive analysis the uniformity of the colour, size and shape characteristics of a batch of plant seeds by Hue, and optionally the Saturation, of the HSI (Hue, Size and Intensity) colour model. | 06-23-2011 |
20110150290 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PREDICTING INFORMATION ABOUT TREES IN IMAGES - A system for predicting a metric for trees in a forest area analyzes a spatial variation in pixel intensities in or more spectral bands in an image of the trees. The variation in pixel intensities is related to the predicted metric for the trees by a relationship determined from images of trees having ground truth data. In one embodiment, a linear regression determines the relationship between the spatial variation in pixel intensities and the metric. In one embodiment, the spatial variation in the pixel intensities in an image is determined in a frequency domain with a two-dimensional Fourier transform of the pixel intensity values. | 06-23-2011 |
20110182477 | METHOD FOR COMPUTING FOOD VOLUME IN A METHOD FOR ANALYZING FOOD - A computer-implemented method for estimating a volume of at least one food item on a food plate is disclosed. A first and second plurality of images are received from different positions above a food plate, wherein angular spacing between the positions of the first plurality of images is greater than angular spacing between the positions of the second plurality of images. A first set of poses of each of the first plurality of images is estimated. A second set of poses of each of the second plurality of images is estimated based on at least the first set of poses. A pair of images taken from each of the first and second plurality of images is rectified based on at least the first and second set of poses. A 3D point cloud is reconstructed based on at least the rectified pair of images. At least one surface of the at least one food item above the food plate is estimated based on at least the reconstructed 3D point cloud. The volume of the at least one food item is estimated based on the at least one surface. | 07-28-2011 |
20110182478 | PROCESS OF SELECTING STEM SEGMENTS - The invention refers to a method of selecting stem segments with desired characteristics and more specifically the invention refers to a method of selecting stem segments of graminaceous plants (from the Gramineae/Poaceae family), such as plants of the | 07-28-2011 |
20110206241 | METHOD AND APPARATUS OF HIGH-THROUGHPUT POLLEN EXTRACTION, COUNTING, AND USE OF COUNTED POLLEN FOR CHARACTERIZING A PLANT - An apparatus and method of quantitatively obtaining a measurement of pollen of a plant. One method of counting comprises imaging the sample with the pollen well-distributed in the focal plane of the imager. Image evaluation software can identify and count objects in the image that are consistent with pollen. Total pollen count for the plant can be derived from the count of pollen of the sample, proportionality of the sample volume to the starting volume, and proportionality of area of sample imaged to total area of sample. Pollen quantification can be used for research or commercial production decisions relative to the plant or its seed. | 08-25-2011 |
20110211733 | CROP THINNING SYSTEMS - A thinning or weeding apparatus includes an image processing apparatus. The image processing apparatus includes an automated visual detection system which includes a visual sensor system and an image processing system capable of receiving an image from the visual sensor system. The image processing apparatus then processes the image in the image processing system to determine where plants are located and to determine which plants will be thinned or weeded and which will not. | 09-01-2011 |
20110222737 | METHOD FOR MEASURING THE GROWTH OF LEAF DISKS OF PLANTS AND APPARATUS SUITED THEREFOR - Disclosed is a method and an apparatus for measuring the growth of leaf disks. The method comprises the following steps: a) Calibrating the capture system, b) capturing at least 2 images of a leaf disk, c) processing the image data, comprising i) segmenting the leaf disks by threshold segmentation, ii) multiple morphological erosion steps, iii) edge cleaning to remove the edge of the storage vessel, d) 3D reconstruction: generating a disparity map by means of a stereo algorithm, calculating a 3D surface model based on the previously determined calibration parameters from the disparity map, e) smoothing the previously obtained surface model, f) determining the growth rates from the time series of the areas. The apparatus comprises at least one camera, a lighting unit, a translation table in the X/Y plane for the camera and (infrared) lighting, storage vessels for leaf disks, and electronic evaluation and control units. | 09-15-2011 |
20110222738 | VEGETATION GROWTH CONDITION ANALYSIS METHOD, RECORDING MEDIUM ON WHICH PROGRAM IS RECORDED, AND VEGETATION GROWTH CONDITION ANALYZER - It is aimed to enable analyzing vegetation growth conditions at multiple times of a year accurately using radar images obtainable from a flying body such as artificial satellites, etc. A plurality of radar images of a ground surface of a same target area, which have been taken at multiple times of a year by a radar device mounted on a flying body, are acquired. The acquired plurality of radar images is stored in a map database. While using as a criterion image a radar image of the plurality of radar images stored in the map database, taken at a predetermined time in the multiple times of a year, other radar images than the criterion image of the plurality of radar images, taken at other times than the predetermined time in the multiple times of a year, are aligned with the criterion image, respectively. Then, backscatter coefficients of specified areas in the plurality of radar images are extracted. Based on a backscatter coefficient of a specified area in the criterion image of the plurality of radar images stored in the map database, backscatter coefficients of other radar images than the criterion image of the plurality of radar images are calibrated. And, based on a correlation between backscatter coefficients of radar images and growth values of vegetation shown in the radar images, growth values of vegetation shown in other radar images than the criterion image of the plurality of radar images, whose backscatter coefficients have been calibrated in the calibrating step, are calculated using the calibrated backscatter coefficients. | 09-15-2011 |
20110243392 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION OUTPUTTING METHOD AND COMPUTER PROGRAM STORAGE DEVICE - An apparatus, method and computer program storage device cooperate to acquire an image of at least a part of a meal. An analysis is then done on the image to determine a substance in the image. The analysis also considers caloric intake and exercise data and compares the same with a health management model to arrive at a recommendation for a user who consumed the meal. Various optional features include using wireless communications to receive exercise data from sensors, as well as communication related images such as the menu of a restaurant or the location of the restaurant. | 10-06-2011 |
20110286636 | System and method of determining nitrogen levels from a digital image - A system and method of determining nitrogen levels from a digital image. In particular, a method of determining leaf nitrogen concentration and yield from a digital photograph of a fully developed leaf (collared leaf) of a crop of nonlegumes, such as corn, rice, wheat, cotton, potatoes or sugarcane. The digital image is processed to determine a dark green color index (“DGCI”), which is closely related to leaf nitrogen concentration and yield. Standardized color disks having known DGCI values are included in the digital photograph and serve as an internal standard. The internal standard allows correction of DGCI of samples when using different cameras and/or when lighting conditions change. | 11-24-2011 |
20110286637 | METHOD FOR ASSIGNING A STONEFRUIT TO A PREDETERMINED CLASS AND A DEVICE THEREFOR - Method for assigning a stonefruit to a predetermined class, in which the stonefruit is transported along at least one source of high-energy electromagnetic radiation such that at least a part of the radiation penetrates through the stonefruit to at least one camera thereto provided and is there captured by the camera to form a contrast image using the captured radiation after which the contrast image is processed by a processing unit which is provided to evaluate a pattern in the contrast image caused by a variation in the density or thickness of a material of the stonefruit corresponding to at least one predetermined feature of the stonefruit and to assign, based on the evaluation of the feature, the stonefruit to a predetermined class, characterised in that the feature mainly corresponds to the presence or absence of a slit in a pit of the stonefruit. | 11-24-2011 |
20110305372 | Method and Device for Computer-Aided Segmentation of an Environment into Individual Objects - The invention relates to a method for computer-aided segmentation of an environment into individual objects, in particular of a wood into individual trees, in which signals (SIG_R) backscattered by the objects are recorded by measurement technology, wherein the backscattered signals (SIG_R) result from the irradiation of the environment to be segmented with electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, in the method according to the invention, spatial co-ordinates (x, y, z) of points which cause the backscattering and represent the object parts (X | 12-15-2011 |
20110311109 | Method and system for estimating antler, horn, and pronghorn size of an animal - The present invention is directed to a method and system utilizing novel computer software for determining the antler, horn, and pronghorn size of an animal by calculating, measuring, analyzing, comparing, scoring, presenting, and comparing the antler and horn sizes of animals such as deer, bovids, and pronghorns from digital data and/or photographs. | 12-22-2011 |
20120008835 | Method and System for Wholesomeness Inspection of Freshly Slaughtered Chickens on a Processing Line - An imaging system containing an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device detector and line-scan spectrograph is used for identifying wholesome and unwholesome freshly slaughtered chicken carcasses on high-speed commercial chicken processing lines. Multispectral imaging algorithms allow for real-time online identification of wholesome and unwholesome chicken carcasses. | 01-12-2012 |
20120020531 | AUTOMATED IMAGE ANALYSIS OF AN ORGANIC POLARIZED OBJECT - In one embodiment, a method includes capturing an image of a first organic polarized object using an image capture device. The method also includes collecting a first image data of the first organic polarized object. The method further includes algorithmically calculating a first dimension data based on the first image data. The method further includes generating a first data table of the first dimension data. The method also includes forming a training data set using the first data table. The method also includes computing high vote count data for second organic polarized object using the training data and second dimension data sets to identify precise shape, size, location and orientation. The method further includes calibrating coordinate systems of a robotic end effector with an image capture device and commanding the robotic end effector to pick up and place the second organic polarized object in a precise location and orientation. | 01-26-2012 |
20120033858 | Method for Administering a Drug Program to Determine Whether an Animal Has Been Given a Drug - Systems and methods are described that provide a fast and simple way of administering a drug program related to an animal. Specifically, systems are provided that can receive, compile and analyze information regarding the condition of an organ in a form that is readily readable, transferable to others, and associated with, or linked to, other information such as the presence or absence of an administered drug, combination of drugs, or drug program. | 02-09-2012 |
20120076365 | BIOMETRIC KIT AND METHOD OF CREATING THE SAME - A biometric kit and method of using the same that includes the collection and verification of photographs, an animal nose print and DNA profile of a pet or animal along with a specific animal information profile. The collected and verified data is converted to a digital format and stored. | 03-29-2012 |
20120087547 | PRODUCE RECOGNITION METHOD - A produce recognition method which uses hierarchical Bayesian learning and kernel combination, and which offers classification-oriented synergistic data integration from diverse sources. An example method includes providing a classifier having a plurality of inputs, each input being adapted to receive produce data of a different modality; mapping the produce data to the respective input of the classifier by a computer; for each input, independently operating on the data relating to that input to create a feature set by the computer; comparing each feature in the feature set to respective pre-trained data for that feature to produce a similarity description set; combining all similarity description sets using a dedicated weighting function to produce a composite similarity description by the computer; and deriving a plurality of class values from the composite similarity description to create a recognition result for the produce item by the computer. | 04-12-2012 |
20120114185 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INVENTORYING VEGETAL SUBSTANCE - A system and method for computing an amount of timber that can be harvested from a plurality of trees is provided. An image related to a plurality of trees in a region may be obtained. A digital representation of the image may be analyzed to determine at least one of a presence, a location and/or a height of at least some of the trees. An inventory report related to an amount of timber that may be harvested may be generated based on at least one of the presence, location and/or a height of trees in the region. | 05-10-2012 |
20120114186 | SYSTEM FOR UNIQUELY IDENTIFYING SUBJECTS FROM A TARGET POPULATION - The system for uniquely identifying subjects from a target population operates to acquire, process and analyze images to create data which contains indicia sufficient to uniquely identify an individual in a population of interest. This system implements an automated, image-based process that captures data indicative of a selected set of external characteristics for subjects that are members of a target population of a predetermined species. | 05-10-2012 |
20120114187 | SYSTEM FOR DIAGNOSIS OF PLANT ANOMALIES - The present invention refers to a system for the diagnosis of plant anomalies which comprises at least: an acquisition device ( | 05-10-2012 |
20120134544 | VOLUME-OF-INTEREST SEGMENTATION SYSTEM FOR USE WITH MOLECULAR IMAGING QUANTIZATION - The present invention relates to a volume-of-interest segmentation system for use with molecular imaging quantization, which includes: a set of template for segmentation of organ/anatomical region-of-interest, an animal size/weight/location calculator, an animal spine position calculator, and a texture analyzer. It can be used for saving time and reducing cost for segmentation of interested regions and increasing the precision of molecular image quantization. | 05-31-2012 |
20120140991 | FLUORESCENCE OBSERVATION APPARATUS - A fluorescence observation apparatus includes an image storage unit for storing a plurality of pairs of bright-field images and fluorescence images of a small laboratory animal in such a manner that relative positions thereof are aligned; a display unit for displaying the plurality of fluorescence images stored in the image storage unit so as to be arrayed in at least one direction; an outline extracting unit for extracting an outline shape of the small laboratory animal in each bright-field image; and an image-position adjusting unit for adjusting a display position of each associated fluorescence image so that the outline shapes of the small laboratory animal extracted by the outline extracting unit are aligned with each other in a direction orthogonal to the arrayed direction. | 06-07-2012 |
20120155714 | VEGETATION INDICES FOR MEASURING MULTILAYER MICROCROP DENSITY AND GROWTH - Disclosed are methods of and systems for producing vegetation information for an area of interest using at least two comparison index values. The comparison index values can be generated based on specific reflectivity characteristics of vegetation relative to non-vegetation. | 06-21-2012 |
20120201430 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANIMAL IDENTIFICATION USING IRIS IMAGES - A system for animal identification includes: an image capture apparatus for obtaining an image of an eye of an animal including a pupil region and an iris region; and a template generation apparatus. The template generation apparatus is for: extracting a set of pixel data from the image, the set of pixel data representing an upper region of interest of the iris region above the pupil region and a lower region of interest of the iris region below the pupil region, the upper region of interest and the lower region of interest have parallel side boundaries that are spaced apart a distance that is substantially independent of a degree of dilation of the pupil region; and transforming the set of pixel data representing the upper region of interest and the lower region of interest into a template of the upper region of interest and the lower region of interest. | 08-09-2012 |
20120275659 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ESTIMATION OF LIVESTOCK WEIGHT - A digital image of a target object is received and the image includes a plurality of pixels. The target object is at least a portion of an animal, and the portion of the animal is disposed in the image according to a predetermined disposition. The weight of the animal is determined using the model and at least one characteristic. At least some of the pixels of the image of animal are analyzed to determine at least one characteristic of the image of the animal. The weight of the animal is determined using the at least one characteristic. | 11-01-2012 |
20120275660 | System and Method for Filtering Data Captured by a 2D Camera - In an exemplary embodiment, a system includes a camera and a processor communicatively coupled to the camera. The processor is operable to access visual data captured by the camera, wherein the visual data comprises an image of a dairy livestock and determine that an intensity measurement of a first portion of the visual data exceeds an intensity threshold. The processor is further operable to filter the first portion of the visual data in response to determining that the intensity measurement exceeds the threshold. The processor is also operable to determine a coordinate of a teat of the dairy livestock based at least in part upon the visual data, excluding filtered portions of the visual data | 11-01-2012 |
20120275661 | System and Method for Filtering Data Captured by a 3D Camera - In an exemplary embodiment, a system includes a three-dimensional camera and a processor. The processor is operable to access a first portion of visual data captured by the three-dimensional camera wherein the visual data comprises an image of a dairy livestock and access a second portion of the visual data, wherein the first portion and the second portion are aligned in a first dimension. The processor is further operable to determine a first coordinate, wherein the first coordinate comprises a location of the first portion in a second dimension, the second dimension orthogonal to the first dimension and determine a second coordinate, wherein the second coordinate comprises a location of the second portion in the second dimension. The processor is further operable to determine a first distance exceeds a distance threshold, wherein the first distance is the distance between the first coordinate and the second coordinate in the second dimension. | 11-01-2012 |
20120275662 | System and Method for Analyzing Data Captured by a Three-Dimensional Camera - In an exemplary embodiment, a system includes a three-dimensional camera and a processor communicatively coupled to the three-dimensional camera. The processor is operable to determine a first edge of a dairy livestock, determine a second edge of the dairy livestock, determine a third edge of the dairy livestock, and determine a fourth edge of the dairy livestock. | 11-01-2012 |
20120288159 | Remote Sensing Analysis of Forest Disturbances - The present invention provides systems and methods to automatically analyze Landsat satellite data of forests. The present invention can easily be used to monitor any type of forest disturbance such as from selective logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, natural hazards (fire, wind events, storms), etc. The present invention provides a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote sensing analysis of such disturbances. | 11-15-2012 |
20120288160 | IMAGE ANALYSIS FOR DETERMINING CHARACTERISTICS OF ANIMALS - Systems and methods are disclosed for predicting one or more characteristics of a animal by applying computational methods to image(s) of the animal to generate one or more metrics indicative of the characteristics. Embodiments determine predictors of characteristics by creating a sample library of animals of a particular type, determining facial descriptor measurements for each animal, determining relationships between facial descriptor measurements and additional library data, and selecting predictors from these relationships. Other embodiments predict characteristics of animals not in the library and, optionally, categorize animals for particular discipline, training, management, care, etc. based on the characteristics. Other embodiments predict characteristics and determine strategies for group(s) of animals using predicted characteristics of individual animals. Embodiments are broadly applicable to domesticated animals including dogs, cats, cattle, oxen, llamas, sheep, goats, camels, geese, horses, chickens, turkeys, and pigs. Other embodiments predict certain characteristics of humans, including certain cognitive or developmental disorders. | 11-15-2012 |
20120288161 | METHOD OF HIGH-THROUGHPUT POLLEN EXTRACTION, COUNTING, AND USE OF COUNTED POLLEN FOR CHARACTERIZING A PLANT - A method of quantitatively obtaining a measurement of pollen of a plant. A quantitative collection of a sample of pollen is counted. Total pollen of the plant can be calculated. One way of quantitative collection of pre-shed pollen involves blending a part of the plant with pollen in the presence of liquid (e.g. water) in a blender. The action of the blender tends to destroy the non-pollen parts of the plant and release the pollen into the liquid. Extraction of the pollen from the blender can be through a sidewall port that includes a filter or sieve having a mesh size that passes relevant pollen but blocks most non-pollen plant parts. The sample can be efficiently prepared for counting of pollen. One method of counting comprises imaging the sample with the pollen well distributed in the focal plane of the imager. | 11-15-2012 |
20120288162 | METHOD OF INCREASING SOIL RESOURCE CAPTURE IN A PLANT - The invention is directed to improving a plants ability to acquire soil resources. Plants that develop a greater amount of aerenchyma will have an improved ability to acquire soil resources and will have greater drought tolerances. Such plants will grow faster and larger than plants that have less aerenchyma. Farmers who plant crops with seeds that will grow into plants have more aerenchyma will be able to reduce the amount of fertilizer used in growing a crop. Accordingly, the invention relates to identifying and breeding a plant with a greater amount of aerenchyma. The identified plant and its progeny will have an improved ability to capture soil resources and will be tolerant to drought. | 11-15-2012 |
20120308086 | AUTOMATIC METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR VISUAL ANALYSIS OF OBJECT AGAINST PRESET - A system for diagnosing an object that includes a preset of an object, a visual representation associated with one or more sub objects of at least part of the object, and a module to analyze the applicable visual representation. The visual representation is captured by a device and provides a specified status of the object. Further the analysis provides a measure of fit between the preset and the specified status of the object as captured and is carried out based on keypoint descriptors used to separate sub objects on the applicable visual representation. The device has a reproduction capturing device and data connectivity. | 12-06-2012 |
20130028487 | COMPUTER VISION AND MACHINE LEARNING SOFTWARE FOR GRADING AND SORTING PLANTS - The present invention encompasses software that brings together computer vision and machine learning algorithms that can evaluate and sort plants into desired categories. While one embodiment of the present invention is directed toward strawberry plants, the software engine described is not specifically designed for strawberry plants but can be used for many different types of plants that require sophisticated quality sorting. The present invention is a sequence of software operations that can be applied to various crops (or other objects besides plants) in a re-usable fashion. | 01-31-2013 |
20130044919 | SYSTEM AND METHOD OF IN-SEASON NITROGEN MEASUREMENT AND FERTILIZATION OF NON-LEGUMINOUS CROPS FROM DIGITAL IMAGE ANALYSIS - Systems and methods of determining nitrogen levels from a digital image and in-season nitrogen measurement and fertilization of non-leguminous crops from digital image analysis are disclosed herein. In particular, a method of determining leaf nitrogen concentration and yield from a digital photograph of a fully developed leaf (collared leaf) of a crop of non-legumes, such as corn, wheat, rice, cotton, potatoes sugarcane, turfgrass or forage grass species. The digital image is processed to determine a dark green color index (“DGCI”), which is closely related to leaf nitrogen concentration and yield. Standardized color disks having known DGCI values are included in the digital photograph and serve as an comparative standard. The comparative standard allows correction of DGCI of samples when using different cameras and/or when lighting conditions change. The DGCI values can then be used to determine the amount of nitrogen fertilizer that should be applied to recover crop yield potential. | 02-21-2013 |
20130051627 | METHOD AND DEVICE FOR EARLY NON-INVASIVE DIAGNOSE OF FRUIT TREE DISEASE - The present invention relates to a non-invasive early diagnostic method and device that allows an early diagnosis of | 02-28-2013 |
20130058541 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD - An information processing apparatus comprises a category recognition section, a characteristic recognition section and a specifying section. The category recognition section recognizes the category of a commodity using input imaged images. The characteristic recognition section recognizes the characteristics of a specific attachment attached to the commodity using the input imaged images. The specifying section specifies the specific information of the commodity according to the category of the commodity that is recognized by the category recognition section and the characteristics of the specific attachment recognized by the characteristic recognition section. | 03-07-2013 |
20130064432 | IMAGE ANALYSIS FOR MAKING ANIMAL MEASUREMENTS - A computer-implemented image analysis process, including: accessing image data representing an image including an animal object representing an animal; selecting one more start points on a boundary of the animal object using an intensity gradient of the image; and generating boundary data, representing at least a portion of the boundary, starting at each of the selected one or more start points, using the intensity gradient. | 03-14-2013 |
20130083974 | IMAGE METHOD FOR CLASSIFYING INSECTS AND CLASSIFYING PROCESS FOR INSECTS - An image method for classifying insects includes the following steps: obtaining detecting images of the insects in a detecting area; obtaining a first foreground image related to the insects by background subtraction; extracting the saturation from the first foreground image and eliminating the non-characteristic objects therein to obtain a second foreground image; extracting the characteristics related to the insects from the second foreground image according to a threshold; and, determining the classifications or the sexes of the insects according to the characteristics. Accordingly, the image method for classifying insects can be used for automatically classifying the insects so as to save the manpower and time. | 04-04-2013 |
20130094717 | AUTOMATIC DETECTION OF OBJECT PIXELS FOR HYPERSPECTRAL ANALYSIS - A method is provided for automatically discerning between object and non-object pixels in a hyperspectral image data cube. In particular embodiments, the object of the method is a plant, plant part, plant trait, plant phenotype, plant pot or a plant medium. The method comprises a first step of providing a partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLSDA) algorithm and a second step of applying the PLSDA algorithm to a hyperspectral image data cube to automatically determine which pixels contain the spectral properties of the object. The PLSDA algorithm of the method can be generated by establishing a training matrix, performing an eigenvector decomposition of the training matrix, experimentally determining a weighted linear combination of object signal-containing eigenvectors, calculating a regression vector using the weighted linear combination of signal-containing eigenvectors, generating a mask matrix and multiplying the mask matrix by the hyperspectral image data cube along two spatial dimensions. | 04-18-2013 |
20130108119 | Image Recomposition From Face Detection And Facial Features | 05-02-2013 |
20130108120 | DEVICE FOR WEIGHING CHICKS | 05-02-2013 |
20130136312 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RECOGNIZING PLANT DISEASES AND RECORDING MEDIUM - A method and a system for recognizing plant diseases and a recording medium are provided. The method includes: providing a plant disease database, for storing plant disease and disease characteristic image corresponding to the plant disease; after obtaining plant image by an image capture device, obtaining segmented plant image by an image processing unit according to a first processing technique, and obtaining suspected region image according to a second processing technique; calculating an area of the suspected region image, and when the area is greater than a preset area, using the suspected region image as syndrome image, and comparing the syndrome image with the disease characteristic image; and when the syndrome image matches any specific disease characteristic image, obtaining a corresponding specific plant disease. | 05-30-2013 |
20130142398 | Facial Recognition Lost Pet Identifying System - A server system stores a database of records. Each record stores a digital image of a pet, facial recognition markers, and owner identification information. An owner may register his/her pet using a cellular telephone and a mobile app. The owner is prompted to supply a digital photograph of the pet and to enter eye and nose location information. The system generates therefrom facial recognition markers and stores the markers in a record. If a lost pet is found, a finding user can use a cellular telephone to take a picture of the animal and to enter eye and nose location information. The system generates markers and compares the markers in a facial recognition process to other stored markers to identify records of animals that resemble the lost pet. If the record of the lost pet is identified, then owner identification information in the record is used to contact the owner. | 06-06-2013 |
20130156271 | SYSTEM FOR ANALYSIS OF PESTS AND DISEASES IN CROPS AND ORCHARDS VIA MOBILE PHONE - System for analysis of pests and diseases in crops and orchards via mobile phone refers essentially to a system that uses a mobile phone ( | 06-20-2013 |
20130156272 | Method for Administering a Drug Program to Determine Whether an Animal Has Been Given a Drug - Systems and methods are described that provide a fast and simple way of administering a drug program related to an animal. Specifically, systems are provided that can receive, compile and analyze information regarding the condition of an organ in a form that is readily readable, transferable to others, and associated with, or linked to, other information such as the presence or absence of an administered drug, combination of drugs, or drug program. | 06-20-2013 |
20130170714 | INFORMATION PROCESSING DEVICE - To provide an information processing device for outputting estimated nutrition value information on at least one dish or a drink through simplified processing. The information processing device holds as reference information a captured image of at least one dish or a drink and nutrition value information set for the item of food or drink included in the image so as to be correlated to each other, receives an image including at least one dish or a drink, and retrieves a plurality of images similar to the image received from among the reference information held. Further, the information processing device calculates a statistic of a plurality of nutrition value information pieces correlated to the plurality of respective images retrieved, and outputs the statistic calculated. | 07-04-2013 |
20130177214 | DEVICE, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR TRANSIT TESTING OF SAMPLES - Disclosed herein is a method and device for testing an agricultural product for the presence of an unwanted residue including a reader-incubator combination that can utilize onboard motor vehicle systems, such as an onboard microprocessor and onboard power supply? | 07-11-2013 |
20130182911 | LEAF AREA INDEX MEASUREMENT SYSTEM, DEVICE, METHOD, AND PROGRAM - A leaf area index measurement system includes: a reflector placed in a neighborhood of a measurement target plant; imaging means placed at a position where no obstacle is present between the imaging means and the reflector, and for capturing an image of the reflector and outputting the captured image; intensity calculation means for calculating an intensity of light reflected by the reflector, based on the captured image output from the imaging means; and leaf area index calculation means for calculating a leaf area index, based on the intensity of light calculated by the intensity calculation means. | 07-18-2013 |
20130216103 | Remote Sensing Analysis of Forest Disturbances - The present invention provides systems and methods to automatically analyze Landsat satellite data of forests. The present invention can easily be used to monitor any type of forest disturbance such as from selective logging, agriculture, cattle ranching, natural hazards (fire, wind events, storms), etc. The present invention provides a large-scale, high-resolution, automated remote sensing analysis of such disturbances. | 08-22-2013 |
20130216104 | SYSTEM FOR UNIQUELY IDENTIFYING SUBJECTS FROM A TARGET POPULATION - The system for uniquely identifying subjects from a target population operates to acquire, process and analyze images to create data which contains indicia sufficient to uniquely identify an individual in a population of interest. This system implements an automated, image-based process that captures data indicative of a selected set of external characteristics for subjects that are members of a target population of a predetermined species. | 08-22-2013 |
20130223693 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR DETERMINING FISH CATCHES - The present disclosure is directed towards determining, at sea, the respective weights of fish species that are part of a fish catch. By way of the present disclosure, images of a fish catch are taken using triangulation techniques involving stereo-photogrammetry. According to one embodiment, a method for estimating a total weight of a fish catch includes receiving a fish catch on a fishing vessel and capturing images of the fish catch. From the images, fishes are identified and the species to which the corresponding fishes belong are also identified. Using the images, lengths of the identified fishes as well as the total volume occupied by the fish catch are determined, which can be used to estimate the total weight of the fish catch. | 08-29-2013 |
20130259320 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING COMMODITY INFORMATION, AND STORAGE MEDIUM CONTAINING RELATED PROGRAM - According to one embodiment, A system for providing commodity information includes a storage module configured to store a plurality of data files, each data file corresponding to a commodity and including a plurality of data fields, each of the data fields comprising: commodity identification information data, symbol identification data, detailed commodity information data, and producer information data, a first recognition module configured to identify the commodity by comparing an input commodity image to the commodity identification information data, a second recognition module configured to identify a symbol on the commodity by comparing an input symbol image to the symbol identification data, and an output module. The output module outputs the detailed commodity information data based on the identified commodity, and outputs the producer information data based on the identified symbol. | 10-03-2013 |
20130266191 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DIGITAL IMAGE ANALYSIS OF EAR TRAITS - A method of evaluating one or more kernels of an ear of maize using digital imagery includes acquiring a digital image of the one or more kernels of the ear of maize, processing the digital image to estimate at least one physical property of the one or more kernels of the ear of maize from the digital image, and evaluating the at least one kernel of maize using the estimate of the at least one physical property of the at least one kernel of maize. | 10-10-2013 |
20130266192 | SPECTRAL UNMIXING FOR VISUALIZATION OF SAMPLES - Disclosed methods include: acquiring a first sequence of multiple images of a sample, with each image in the first sequence corresponding to a different spectral weighting function; unmixing the first sequence of images into data corresponding to a first set of unmixed images, where each unmixed image in the first set corresponds to a spatial distribution in the sample of a different one of multiple components at a first time; acquiring one or more additional images of the sample and combining the additional images with one or more of the images in the first sequence to form a second sequence of images; unmixing the second sequence of images into data corresponding to a second set of unmixed images; and displaying information about the sample as a function of time based on the data corresponding to the first and second sets of unmixed images. | 10-10-2013 |
20130294656 | SEED HOLDING DEVICE AND SEED CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM WITH SEED HOLDING DEVICE - A seed classification system is provided. The seed classification system includes a seed holding device and a seed spectral analysis system. The seed holding device includes a top surface and a plurality of wells disposed in the top surface. The plurality of wells are configured to hold a plurality of seeds. Each well is defined by at least one wall extending transverse to the top surface. The seed spectral analysis system is configured to obtain image data for one or more of the seeds held in one or more of the wells of the seed holding device and configured to classify the one or more seeds based on the obtained image data. | 11-07-2013 |
20130322699 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR DETERMINING AND DISPLAYING ANIMAL METRICS - The invention provides, in one aspect, a computerized method for estimating a weight of an animal. The method includes acquiring an image of an animal and comparing, by at least one computing device, the image to a plurality of models to determine a selected one of the plurality of models that optimally matches a size or shape of the animal, wherein each of the plurality of models has a known weight. The method further includes adjusting, by the at least one computing device, either (i) the image relative to the selected model or (ii) the selected model relative to the image. One or more differential adjustment parameters are determined, by the at least one computing device, based upon the adjustment of the image or model; and a weight of the animal is determined, by the at least one computing device, by adjusting the known weight of the selected model based upon the one or more differential adjustment parameters. | 12-05-2013 |
20130322700 | COMMODITY RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND COMMODITY RECOGNITION METHOD - According to one embodiment, a commodity recognition apparatus includes a feature amount extraction module, a commodity recognition module and an output module. The feature amount extraction module extracts appearance feature amount of a commodity contained in an image photographed. The commodity recognition module compares data of the appearance feature amount extracted by the feature amount extraction module with the feature amount data of each part of the commodity, representing surface information of each part of the commodity subject to the recognition, that is previously stored in a recognition dictionary file, to recognize the commodity as a candidate of registration commodity contained in the image photographed. The output module outputs the recognition result of the commodity recognition module. | 12-05-2013 |
20130329964 | IMAGE-PROCESSING DEVICE AND IMAGE-PROCESSING PROGRAM - There are provided a face detection unit that detects a face of an animal in an image; a candidate area setting unit that sets an animal body candidate area for a body of the animal in the image based upon face detection results provided by the face detection unit; a reference image acquisition unit that obtains a reference image; a similarity calculation unit that divides the animal body candidate area having been set by the candidate area setting unit into a plurality of small areas and calculates a level of similarity between an image in each of the plurality of small areas and the reference image; and a body area estimating unit that estimates an animal body area corresponding to the body of the animal from the animal body candidate area based upon levels of similarity having been calculated for the plurality of small areas by the similarity calculation unit. | 12-12-2013 |
20130336542 | INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM, INDIVIDUAL PRODUCT IDENTIFICATION METHOD, AND DEVICE AND PROGRAM USED BY SAME - The present invention is an individual product identification method, comprising: previously storing epidermal pattern images in a predetermined scope with a predetermined location of a registered product taken as a reference; imaging the epidermal pattern in the predetermined scope with the predetermined location of the product, being a target of individual product identification, taken as a reference; correcting the imaged epidermal pattern image of the product, being a target of individual product identification to an image for collation with the registered product with the predetermined location of the product taken as a reference: and collating an image characteristic of the epidermal pattern image of the registered product with the image characteristic of the corrected epidermal pattern image, and identifying whether the product, being a target of individual product identification, is one of the registered products. | 12-19-2013 |
20140023241 | DICTIONARY REGISTRATION APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ADDING FEATURE AMOUNT DATA TO RECOGNITION DICTIONARY - A dictionary registration apparatus compares the appearance feature amount of a commodity extracted from a captured image with the feature amount data of a recognition dictionary file to extract a candidate of the commodity contained in the image. If a plurality of commodities is extracted, the selection input of the commodity contained in the image from the plurality of commodity candidates is received. If the selection input of one commodity is received, the declaration input indicating whether or not supplement to the feature amount data stored in the recognition dictionary file for the selected commodity is executed is received. If the declaration input indicating the execution of supplement is received, the extracted appearance feature amount data is added to the recognition dictionary file as a feature amount data for the commodity the selection input of which is received. | 01-23-2014 |
20140023242 | RECOGNITION DICTIONARY PROCESSING APPARATUS AND RECOGNITION DICTIONARY PROCESSING METHOD - A recognition dictionary processing apparatus compares the data of the feature amount extracted from a commodity image with the feature amount data in a recognition dictionary file to recognize a candidate for the commodity contained in the image and outputs the recognized candidate commodity. The apparatus executes a first processing related to the update of the recognition dictionary file of the processing object if the commodity contained in the image is does not exist in the candidate commodities or a second processing unrelated to the update of the recognition dictionary file of the processing object if the commodity contained in the image exists in the candidate commodities. | 01-23-2014 |
20140023243 | KERNEL COUNTER - An apparatus and method for determining the number of kernels on a sample cob are provided. In one embodiment, an image including a front region of the sample cob, and a back region of the sample cob displayed in at least one reflective surface are provided to an image processor that identifies the presence of kernels in the image and determines the number of kernels based on the identified presence of kernels in the image. | 01-23-2014 |
20140029808 | Body Condition Score Determination for an Animal - Described are methods and systems for determining a body condition score (BCS) for an animal. An imaging device captures at least one image of an animal, where each image includes a body region of the animal, and transmits the image to a computing device. The computing device identifies the body region contained in the image and crops a portion of the image associated with the identified body region from the image. The computing device compares the cropped portion of the image with one or more fitting models corresponding to the body region and determines a body condition score for the body region based upon the comparing step. | 01-30-2014 |
20140050364 | Method And Arrangement For The Optical Evaluation Of Harvested Crop In A Harvesting Machine - An arrangement for the optical evaluation of harvested crop in a harvesting machine includes a camera located for taking images of threshed out crop elements (grain and material other than grain) being conveyed within a channel of the machine. An electronic image processing system receives the images and identifies individual objects in the images, these objects being classified into predetermined object classes by way of comparing at least one of color, contour or texture features of the individual objects and corresponding characteristics of reference objects filed in a data bank. The processing system then determines the absolute or relative numbers or areas of the individual objects assigned to the respective object classes. | 02-20-2014 |
20140050365 | SEED CLASSIFICATION USING SPECTRAL ANALYSIS TO DETERMINE EXISTENCE OF A SEED STRUCTURE - This disclosure relates to a method and system that models a seed structure and uses a spectral analysis to identify which morphological seed structures are existent in the seed/seedling. Additionally, this disclosure relates to a method and system that applies multi-spectral analysis using predetermined models of a seed/seedling to identify which morphological structures are existent in the seed/seedling. The information about the existence or non-existence of structures of the seed/seedling is used to classify the seed as having a specific characteristic, for later commercial use or sale. The seed market determines which specific characteristic the method will use to classify the seed/seedling. The individual seed classification may help determine associated seed lot germination values. | 02-20-2014 |
20140050366 | System for Predicting Game Animal Movement and Managing Game Animal Images - A system for managing scouting images, including a scouting camera configured to record and store images of subjects at a particular location and an image management device which has a processor that creates a predictive statement based on image content of the images stored on the scouting camera or copies thereof and a display conveying the predictive statement to a user, wherein the predictive statement indicates a portion of a future time period that subjects are most likely to be at the particular location as compared to remaining portions of the future time period. | 02-20-2014 |
20140056482 | METHOD, SENSOR UNIT AND MACHINE FOR DETECTING "SUGAR TOP" DEFECTS IN POTATOES - The invention relates to a method, a sensor unit and a machine for detecting “sugar end” defects in potatoes. The method comprises irradiating potatoes with at least one light source, for a plurality of locus points on each potato, wherein locus points lie on the end regions of the potato and other locus points lie in a central region of the potato. The light reflected from and/or transmitted through the respective locus points is selectively projected onto at least one photo sensor which generates light measurement signals for each locus point from the received light. At least one classification feature is determined from the light measurement signals. If at least one classification feature corresponds to a predefined “sugar end” criterion the respective potato is classified as having “sugar end” defects. | 02-27-2014 |
20140064568 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR NON-DESTRUCTIVELY DIAGNOSING CROP GROWTH USING TERAHERTZ WAVES - An apparatus and method for non-destructively diagnosing crop growth using terahertz waves are provided. The apparatus includes an information extractor configured to extract status information on a crop from information on an image of the crop taken using terahertz waves, a database configured to store growth-stage-specific information on the crop, and a status determiner configured to compare the status information on the crop extracted by the information extractor with the growth-stage-specific information stored in the database, and determine the degree of growth of the crop. | 03-06-2014 |
20140064569 | COMMODITY RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND COMMODITY RECOGNITION METHOD - A commodity recognition apparatus extracts the appearance feature amount of a commodity included in an image from the captured image, compares the appearance feature amount with the feature amount data of a recognition dictionary, and extracts the candidate of the commodity included in the image. When the selection input of the commodity is accepted from a plurality of commodity candidates, correction data are generated according to the feature amount data of the commodity of which the selection input is accepted and the appearance feature amount data, and the appearance feature amount of the commodity extracted by utilizing the correction data is corrected. | 03-06-2014 |
20140064570 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD - In accordance with one embodiment, an information processing apparatus includes an area specification module configured to specify a sufficiency area meeting a specified temperature condition from a thermography representing the temperature distribution in an image capturing area, an extraction module configured to extract feature amount from a specified area in a captured image of the image capturing area based on the sufficiency area specified by the area specification module and an object recognition module configured to recognize an object contained in the captured image using the feature amount extracted by the extraction module. | 03-06-2014 |
20140079291 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ANALYZING AND PROCESSING FOOD PRODUCT - Systems and methods are described that provide a fast and simple way of processing meat or food products. Information is compiled and analyzed regarding the condition of a carcass, meat product, styling of the meat product and associated tray or package. Information is used in various processes, including determining which further processing steps are required. The information is also stored for future reference and analysis. | 03-20-2014 |
20140093138 | PLANT SPECIES IDENTIFICATION APPARATUS AND METHOD - A plant species identification apparatus for identifying plant species is disclosed. A reference data storage part stores reference spectral data which indicate a reflectance spectral feature classified by area segments including a sunlit portion and a shaded portion in addition to the plant species. A data input part acquires hyperspectral data to be a target. A determination part specifies the reflectance spectral feature of a pixel for each of pixels of the hyperspectral data from the reference data storage part and to determine the plant species of the pixels based on a classification of the reference spectral data. | 04-03-2014 |
20140099000 | DEVICE AND METHOD FOR DETECTING PLANTATION ROWS - A device and method for identifying plant rows in a field represented by an image is provided. The plant rows may be identified using the frequency domain. The plant rows may further be identified using information regarding plant positions. Additionally, plant rows may be obtained by any appropriate method and analyzed to differentiate between planted and non-planted rows. Further, plant rows may be segmented according to predefined classifications or attributes thereof, wherein the classification/attributes may derived from an image of the area in which the plant rows are found and/or using any other appropriate method. | 04-10-2014 |
20140112549 | PATTERN EXTRACTING APPARATUS AND METHOD - A pattern extracting apparatus includes a first storing section storing plural target information pieces, a candidate pattern producing section producing candidate patterns each including two or more items different from each other based on each of the items included in the plural target information pieces, a candidate evaluation value calculating section calculating an extraction evaluation value of the candidate pattern based on a frequency of appearance at which the produced candidate pattern appears in the plural target information pieces, a pattern extracting section determining and extracting any of the candidate patterns having the calculated extraction evaluation value satisfying a predetermined threshold value, and a second storing section storing an association degree between the items. The candidate evaluation value calculating section calculates the extraction evaluation value based on a weight based on an identified association degree between the items included in the candidate pattern and the frequency of appearance. | 04-24-2014 |
20140119614 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD - There is provided an information processing apparatus including an image acquisition unit configured to acquire a dish image obtained by shooting a single or multiple dishes, and a first dish recognition unit configured to recognize the single or multiple dishes included in the dish image with reference to dish data selected, from dish data registered in advance, based on a condition regarding at least one of a person relating to the dish image, a shooting environment of the dish image, a shooting place of the dish image, and a shooting time of the dish image. | 05-01-2014 |
20140140581 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR PROVIDING REMOTE PLANT IDENTIFICATION BY UNIQUE BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS - Plants may be remotely identified using unique biological characteristics (UBCs). One method involves determining a target plant within an area to be surveyed and associated target plant characteristics. The method may further include a determination of one or more unique UBCs associated with the target plant, and the location of a training plant within the physical area that exhibits the target plant characteristics. Thereafter, comparisons may be made between subsections of an acquired, date-specific, geo referenced image and data representing the training plant to identify those subsections that represent plants within the area that are associated with the one or more UBCs. | 05-22-2014 |
20140140582 | Systems for Determining Animal Metrics and Related Devices and Methods - In some aspects, an animal positioning system can include a positioning member positioned relative to a datum structure, the positioning member being configured to limit an available spacing along a floor surface between the positioning member and the datum structure, the positioning member being arranged at an angular bias away from the datum structure relative to a floor surface and being configured to permit unobstructed viewing of a body of an animal positioned in the available spacing. | 05-22-2014 |
20140147015 | Method for Scoring and Controlling Quality of Food Products in a Dynamic Production Line - A method for scoring and controlling the quality of dynamic food products transitioning in the processing steps is performed using image analysis. An image of a plurality of moving food products on a conveyor system is captured by on-line vision equipment and image analysis is performed on the image via an algorithm that determines the percentage of pixels having varying intensities of colors and applies predetermined preferences to predict consumer dissatisfaction. The entire group of food products of one or more images is given an overall appearance score and each individual food product is also scored such that each may be ranked from least to more acceptable. The ranked food products can then be ejected in the order of worst to better rank to increase the overall quality score of the entire group. | 05-29-2014 |
20140147016 | VISION SYSTEM FOR FACILITATING THE AUTOMATED APPLICATION OF DISINFECTANT TO THE TEATS OF DAIRY LIVESTOCK - A method for determining a spray position for a spray tool includes accessing an image signal generated by a camera, the image signal corresponding to at least an udder of a dairy livestock. The method further includes processing the accessed image signal to determine a tangent to the rear and a tangent to the bottom of the udder of the dairy livestock. The method concludes by determining a spray position from which a spray tool may apply disinfectant to the teats of the dairy livestock, wherein the spray position is a position relative to the intersection of the two tangents. | 05-29-2014 |
20140147017 | Method for Administering a Drug Program to Determine Whether an Animal Has Been Given a Drug - Systems and methods are described that provide a fast and simple way of administering a drug program related to an animal. Specifically, systems are provided that can receive, compile and analyze information regarding the condition of an organ in a form that is readily readable, transferable to others, and associated with, or linked to, other information such as the presence or absence of an administered drug, combination of drugs, or drug program. | 05-29-2014 |
20140153786 | COMMODITY RECOGNITION APPARATUS AND COMMODITY RECOGNITION METHOD - A commodity recognition apparatus comprises an image interface configured to acquire the image of a commodity photographed by a camera and a processor configured to detect a commodity image from the images acquired via the image interface, carry out a commodity recognition processing for recognizing commodity candidates according to the feature amount extracted from the commodity image and a code reading processing for reading a commodity recognition code from the same commodity image in parallel, and as a result determine a commodity recognition code if the commodity recognition code is read through the code reading processing or output the result of the commodity recognition processing if no commodity recognition code is read and the photographing period for the commodity is ended. | 06-05-2014 |
20140161324 | ELECTRONIC DEVICE AND DATA ANALYSIS METHOD - In a method for analyzing interpersonal relationships of persons. The method obtains images of the persons within every preset time period, determines images from the obtained images which include a first person and a second person within every preset time period, calculates a distance between the first person and the second person in each determined image within every preset time period, to calculate a relationship weight between the first person and the second person within every preset time period. The method further determines a tendency chart of the relationship weight between the first person and the second person according to the relationship weight between the first person and the second person within every preset time period, and displays the tendency chart on a display device. | 06-12-2014 |
20140169640 | ELECTRIC PRODUCT - An electric product which includes a recognition device obtaining information about a food item to be added to a storage compartment, and a display unit displaying information about a food item stored in the storage compartment. The electric product further includes a memory unit storing the information about the food item stored in the storage compartment, and a control unit controlling the display unit. The recognition device obtains information about a food item to be added. The control unit stores the information about the food to be added in the memory unit and displays the information about the food added to the memory unit on the display unit. | 06-19-2014 |
20140185884 | System and Method for Estimating Ages of Forests from Remotely Sensed Images - A programmed computer system estimates the age of trees from a number of remotely sensed images of an area of interest. Vegetation Index (V.I.) values are determined for pixel locations in the number of images. The V.I. values are analyzed to find a V.I. value that correlates with a known age of a tree. Once the date of the image that produced the V.I. value is known, the current age of the trees that correspond to the pixel location is determined. | 07-03-2014 |
20140193043 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ESTIMATION OF LIVESTOCK WEIGHT - A digital image of a target object is received and the image includes a plurality of pixels. The target object is at least a portion of an animal, and the portion of the animal is disposed in the image according to a predetermined disposition. The weight of the animal is determined using the model and at least one characteristic. At least some of the pixels of the image of animal are analyzed to determine at least one characteristic of the image of the animal. The weight of the animal is determined using the at least one characteristic. | 07-10-2014 |
20140205154 | SYSTEM FOR MAPPING AND IDENTIFICATION OF PLANTS USING DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING AND ROUTE GENERATION - The present invention relates to a system and method for mapping of plants. Homogenous and heterogeneous flora areas called clusters are identified in remote sensing images and routes to the plant clusters are generated. The plants are classified using morphological data from foliar images of plants present in the clusters. | 07-24-2014 |
20140219512 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD - An information processing apparatus comprises a storage module configured to store feature amounts of standard commodities; an image capturing module configured to photograph a commodity to capture an image of the commodity; an extraction module configured to extract feature amount of the commodity from the image captured by the image capturing module; a calculation module configured to calculate a similarity degree by comparing the feature amount of a standard commodity which is determined as a recognition target in setting information in which a standard commodity serving as a recognition target is set within the standard commodities stored in the storage module with the feature amount of the commodity extracted by the extraction module; and a recognition module configured to recognize a standard commodity of which the similarity degree calculated by the calculation module is greater than a threshold value as a candidate of the commodity. | 08-07-2014 |
20140241590 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PARTICLE SIZE DETERMINATION - A computer-implemented method of determining particle size and a computer-readable medium storing instructions to execute such a method are presented. The method entails obtaining an image of at least one particle and a calibration mark, wherein the particle and the calibration mark were captured using the same lens, correcting the image for distortion effects to generate a corrected image, wherein the same correction factor is applied to both the particle and the calibration mark, and determining a size of the particle using the corrected image. The method may be useful for obtaining the target size of coffee grounds that will produce the desired flavor. Coffee grounds may be sprinkled on a surface with the calibration mark and imaged with the calibration mark such that the correction factor for the calibration mark can be used to determine the particle size range of the coffee grounds. | 08-28-2014 |
20140270395 | METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR DETERMINING INFORMATION ABOUT OBJECTS FROM OBJECT IMAGES - Methods and apparatus for determining information about an object are provided. An image of an object is acquired, dimensional information about the object are estimated based on the image data, and weight information is determined about the object using the estimated dimensional information. The image may be displayed with the object dimensional information and/or with the object weight information. The image may be stored and/or shared with the object dimensional and weight information. In addition, other information may be entered by a user and stored and/or shared with the image. A medical condition of a person may be determined by acquiring an image of the person, estimating height and weight information for the person based on image data, and determining a medical condition using the estimated height and weight information. | 09-18-2014 |
20140286540 | ESTIMATING PHYSICAL PARAMETERS USING THREE DIMENSIONAL REPRESENTATIONS - Methods, systems, and apparatus for estimating physical parameters using three dimensional representations. In one aspect, predetermined light patterns are projected onto an object and light patterns resulting from an interaction of the projected light patterns and portions of the object are detected. Three dimensional locations of multiple light elements in the detected light pattern are determined, and physical parameters of the object, for example, weight, are estimated based on the locations. | 09-25-2014 |
20140294247 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CHARACTERISING PLANT PHENOTYPE - The present disclosure provides a computer-implemented method of and system for, characterising the phenotype of a plant. The method includes: (i) obtaining mesh data representing a surface of the plant, said mesh data including data representing a plurality of polygons having respective sets of vertices, each vertex having a spatial coordinate; and (ii) applying at least two segmentations of progressively finer resolution to the mesh data to assign the vertices to distinct morphological regions of the plant. | 10-02-2014 |
20140301607 | Field and Crop Evaluation Tool and Methods of Use - A method for determining a percent ground cover over an area of land is s provided. An image of the area of land is captured, and an area of interest within the image is defined. The area of interest image is converted to a gray scale image, a user-adjustable threshold is specified for distinguishing ground cover from soil and the percent ground cover present in the gray scale image is calculated and reported. | 10-09-2014 |
20140314280 | SYSTEM FOR PREDICTING PRODUCTION OF FRUIT TREE AND DRIVING METHOD THEREOF - Provided is a system for predicting production of a fruit tree, including a plant image obtaining unit collecting images of a fruit tree and confirming identification information about the fruit tree from the collected images, a branch pattern recognizing unit receiving an image of the fruit tree whose identification information is confirmed and extracting fruit bearing branches from among various kinds of branches belonging to the fruit tree, a fruit tree bud recognizing unit receiving an image of each of the extracted fruit bearing branches and extracting information about buds that fruits are actually to be born from among buds belonging to the fruit bearing branch, a meta database storing previous production predicting information about the fruit tree corresponding to the collected images, and a production estimating unit comparing the received bud information and the previous production predicting information to predict production of the fruit tree. | 10-23-2014 |
20140321714 | Methods of enhancing agricultural production using spectral and/or spatial fingerprints - These inventions are directed to methods and devices for enhancing agricultural production using low cost digital electronic spectral and/spatial analysis to determine the shortage of one or more nutrients. The preferred method is to take a spectral image of a healthy plant known to have a sufficient amount of the nutrient in question to form a “standard of comparison” and placing same in a digital memory, then taking a spectral image of a plant whose sufficiency of the nutrient is in question and comparing the coefficient of correlation of the two images at a plurality of points along short segments of the images to identify the nanometer range in which the correlation of coefficient is small to identify the nutrient in questions. Thereafter, the shortage of the specific nutrient in question can be ascertained by subsequent comparisons of field crops by looking at the specific nanometer range identified for the specific nutrient. | 10-30-2014 |
20140321715 | RECOGNITION DICTIONARY CREATION APPARATUS AND RECOGNITION DICTIONARY CREATION METHOD - In accordance with one embodiment, a recognition dictionary creation apparatus comprises an image capturing section, a measurement module, a specification module, an extraction module and a registration module. The image capturing section photographs a commodity at a distance away from the image capturing section to capture an image of the commodity. The measurement module measures the distance from the image capturing section to the commodity photographed by the image capturing section as a distance data. The specification module specifies the commodity from the captured image. The extraction module extracts an appearance feature amount of the commodity from the captured image. The registration module registers the appearance feature amount extracted by the extraction module in a recognition dictionary file in association with the distance data as a feature amount data of the specified commodity at the distance measured by the measurement module. | 10-30-2014 |
20140334691 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING COOKING INFORMATION ABOUT FOOD - Provided are a method and system for providing cooking information about food. The method includes receiving, from a camera, an ingredients image of at least one ingredient on a plate; determining the at least one ingredient based on the ingredients image; determining a food recommendation list related to the at least one ingredient, based on user information about a user of a mobile device; obtaining cooking information about food that is selected from the food recommendation list; and providing the cooking information to a projector that is connected to the mobile device, wherein the cooking information is projected, via the projector, onto the plate on which the at least one ingredient is disposed. | 11-13-2014 |
20140334692 | DEVICE AND METHOD FOR DETECTING A PLANT AGAINST A BACKGROUND - A device for detecting a plant against a background includes a provider for providing a plurality of different photographs of the plant leaf against the background, the photographs differing in that image points of the different photographs relating to the same location of the plant leaf are illuminated with different levels of brightness, a selector for selecting such image points, from the different photographs, whose levels of brightness are within a predetermined range, an image point of a first photograph being selected for a first location of the plant leaf, and an image point of a second, different photograph being selected for a different location of the plant leaf to obtain a representation of the plant leaf against the background, the representation being composed of and/or merged from different photographs, and a segmenter for segmenting the composite photograph to obtain a segment representation having the plant leaf without the background or the background without the plant leaf. | 11-13-2014 |
20140376782 | IMMATURE EAR PHOTOMETRY IN MAIZE - Methods for evaluating one or more immature ears of maize are presented in which digital imagery and image processing are used to assess physical properties of immature maize ears that are correlated with yield and other yield-related traits. Also provided are methods for identifying leads using immature ear photometry. | 12-25-2014 |
20140376783 | SYSTEM FOR UNIQUELY IDENTIFYING SUBJECTS FROM A TARGET POPULATION - The system for uniquely identifying subjects from a target population operates to acquire, process and analyze images to create data which contains indicia sufficient to uniquely identify an individual in a population of interest. This system implements an automated, image-based process that captures data indicative of a selected set of external characteristics for subjects that are members of a target population of a predetermined species. | 12-25-2014 |
20150023565 | INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD - In accordance with one embodiment, an information processing apparatus comprises an image capturing module configured to photograph a commodity to capture the image of the commodity, an acquisition module configured to acquire the image captured by the image capturing module, a recognition module configured to recognize a commodity as a candidate of the commodity from standard commodities based on the image of the commodity captured by the image capturing module, a clock module configured to count an elapsed time until the recognition module recognizes the commodity, and a notification module configured to give a notification if the elapsed time reaches a given time. | 01-22-2015 |
20150023566 | Insect and Other Small Object Image Recognition and Instant Response - A device for detecting offending objects such as insects on substrates such as on leaves, plants or in fluid. The device has a microscope lens which magnifies a portion of the substrate and sends an image of the substrate portion to an image recognition system. If the image recognition system detects the presence of an offending object—further steps are taken to remove, neutralize or mark the area where the offending object is located for subsequent action. | 01-22-2015 |
20150043788 | Determining and Validating a Posture of an Animal - Described herein are methods and systems, including computer program products, for validating a posture of an animal. An imaging device captures at least one image of an animal, where each image includes a body region of the animal, and transmits the image to a computing device. The computing device generates a 3D point cloud based upon the image. The computing device performs one or more edge analysis tests on the 3D point cloud, and determines whether the posture is valid based upon the one or more edge analysis tests | 02-12-2015 |
20150049919 | apparatus for diagnosis and control of honeybee varroatosis, image processing method and software for recognition of parasite - An device for diagnosis and control of honeybee varroatosis ( | 02-19-2015 |
20150063651 | IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD - A binarization processing unit generates a binary image by comparing the visual feature of each pixel of an input image with a predetermined binarization threshold and binarizing the value of each pixel of the input image based on the comparison result. The binarization processing unit performs this process while changing the binarization threshold, thereby generating a plurality of binary images. A contour detecting unit calculates the area of a closed region having an overlap between the plurality of binary images, and determines the binarization threshold to be used for detecting a boundary of the corresponding closed region as a contour of an object, based on the area change rate of the corresponding closed region caused by changing the binarization threshold. | 03-05-2015 |
20150063652 | PATHOGEN DETERMINATION IN FLUID - A computer-implemented method of identifying a pathogen likely causing an increased somatic cell count in a sample of fluid is described. An image of the sample of fluid is received. Pixels in the image are parsed to identify pixels representing somatic cells. The identified pixels are analysed to determine image parameters. The determined images parameters are compared with different sets of predefined pathogen parameters stored in memory to determine a match. Each of the sets of pathogen parameters represents a different one of a plurality of pathogens. The pathogen likely causing an increased somatic cell count is identified by the set of the pathogen parameters that matches the image parameters. A computer readable medium storing instructions to implement the method and a system configure to implement the method are also described. | 03-05-2015 |
20150071499 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FILTERING DATA CAPTURED BY A 2D CAMERA - A system comprises a memory operable to store light intensity information for a plurality of neighboring pixels of an image that includes a dairy livestock. The system further comprises a processor communicatively coupled to the memory. The processor determine that a difference between the light intensity information for a first pixel of the plurality of neighboring pixels and at least some of the other neighboring pixels exceeds a threshold. The processor further discards the first pixel and determines a location of a teat of the dairy livestock based on the image, excluding the discarded pixel. | 03-12-2015 |
20150078626 | ANIMAL / PET IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM AND METHOD BASED ON BIOMETRICS - An animal identification system and method is provided. The system includes a biometric sensor configured to capture a biometric feature of an animal as a biometric representation of the animal and a biometric identification module configured to receive the biometric representation of the animal and compare said biometric representation of the animal with stored biometric data for a plurality of animals and evaluate matching characteristics between the biometric representation of the animal and stored biometric data for the plurality of animals. The biometric sensor may include a nose print sensor, capacitive sensor, or camera. The biometric feature may include a nose print, an iris image of an eye of the animal, or an image of the unique vein pattern in the sclera of an eye of the animal. | 03-19-2015 |
20150110361 | System and method for collection and validation of nutritional data - A method for collection and validation of nutritional data includes capturing, by a first digital camera device, at least one first image of a first product, and transmitting the at least one first image to a server. The method includes comparing, by the server, at least one first nutritional value extracted from the at least one first image to at least one corresponding second nutritional value extracted from the at least one first image. The method includes establishing, by the server, that the at least one first nutritional value is correct. The method includes publishing, by the server, nutritional data from the at least one first image. | 04-23-2015 |
20150131867 | TREATMENT RECOMMENDING SYSTEM OF PLANT SYMPTOMS, METHOD AND NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER-READABLE MEDIUM - A treatment recommending system of plant symptom includes an operation interface, an image capture unit, a processing unit and a storage unit for storing plant symptom data and diagnostic data. The processing unit may find target contour data presenting a plant part according to symptom description and symptom characteristic data. The image capture unit obtains plant image data corresponding to the target contour data. The processing unit analyzes the plant image data, and coordinates with the symptom characteristic data to determine corresponding treatment recommendation data. | 05-14-2015 |
20150131868 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MATCHING AN ANIMAL TO EXISTING ANIMAL PROFILES - Systems and methods are described that may be used to match an image of an unknown animal, such as a lost pet, with images of animals that have been registered with an online service. Matching of the images of animals may be done in a two stage process. The first stage determines one or more images based on a classification of the images on the visual characteristics. The second stage determines a degree of matching between the retrieved images and the image to be matched. | 05-14-2015 |
20150146937 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE SEUROP CLASSIFICATION OF THE CONFORMATION OF CARCASSES OF SLAUGHTERED CATTLE - An apparatus ( | 05-28-2015 |
20150146938 | GRAIN APPEARANCE MEASURING APPARATUS - A technical object is to enable optical checks to be performed while allowing visual checks using a sample pan to be performed in a pseudo manner using an aggregate image (pseudo image) depicting grains loaded on the sample pan, by optically checking the grains using image information on the grains imaged by an imaging apparatus and creating the aggregate image using the image information. Thus, a grain appearance measuring apparatus includes imaging means for imaging a plurality of grains, analysis means for analyzing image information on the grains imaged by the imaging means in units of grains, processing means for processing the image information to form an aggregate image of the grains, and means for saving and/or displaying the aggregate image processed by the processing means. The processing means extracts grain images from the image information in units of grains and arranges the extracted grain images in units of grains, in a close state where the grain images are close to one another to form an aggregate image of the grain images. | 05-28-2015 |
20150146939 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY DISCOVERING, CHARACTERIZING, CLASSIFYING AND SEMI-AUTOMATICALLY LABELING ANIMAL BEHAVIOR AND QUANTITATIVE PHENOTYPING OF BEHAVIORS IN ANIMALS - A method for studying the behavior of an animal in an experimental area including stimulating the animal using a stimulus device; collecting data from the animal using a data collection device; analyzing the collected data; and developing a quantitative behavioral primitive from the analyzed data. A system for studying the behavior of an animal in an experimental area including a stimulus device for stimulating the animal; a data collection device for collecting data from the animal; a device for analyzing the collected data; and a device for developing a quantitative behavioral primitive from the analyzed data. A computer implemented method, a computer system and a nontransitory computer readable storage medium related to the same. Also, a method and apparatus for automatically discovering, characterizing and classifying the behavior of an animal in an experimental area. Further, use of a depth camera and/or a touch sensitive device related to the same. | 05-28-2015 |
20150289478 | Livestock Identification and Monitoring - A livestock identification system/method configured to identify individual animals from a pool of livestock is disclosed. The system/method utilizes images of individual animals and determines the identity of a specific animal based on markers extracted from the image of the animal. These markers may then be used to characterize the state of the animal as to weight, health, and other parameters. The system is configured to log these parameters in a temporal database that may be used to determine historical activity of the animal, including but not limited to activity relating to food and/or fluid intake. This historical record in conjunction with analysis of the animal state parameters is used to determine the animal health status and may also be used to determine whether the animal is ready for harvesting. | 10-15-2015 |
20150294154 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSESSING RIPARIAN HABITATS - A method of assessing a riparian area includes mapping a physical extent of a potential riparian area (PRA) along a stream using first imagery, determining a percent of basic functional groups of vegetation with the PRA using the first imagery, and determining a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for the PRA over multiple years using second imagery. The method further includes setting an NDVI threshold value for riparian vegetation in the PRA using the NDVI, mathematically relating the percent of basic functional groups with the NDVI threshold value to evaluate and correct the NDVI threshold value, and determining a proper function and condition (PFC) assessment of the PRA using the corrected NDVI threshold value. | 10-15-2015 |
20150294450 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR MEASURING CALORIE INTAKE - Systems and methods for measuring calorie input are described. A calorie measure may be maintained. At least one image of a food item may be captured. The at least one image of the food item may be transmitted to a server. A calories consumed value may be received from the server. The calories consumed value may be determined based at least in part on the at least one image of the food item. The calorie measure may be updated based on the received calories consumed value. | 10-15-2015 |
20150294451 | METHOD FOR CONTROLLING OPERATION OF REFRIGERATOR BY USING SPEECH RECOGNITION, AND REFRIGERATOR EMPLOYING SAME - A refrigerator according to one embodiment of the present invention includes: a memory for storing information on food stored in a storeroom; a weight detecting unit disposed in the storeroom for detecting the weight of the food in order to determine whether food is received or withdrawn; a controller for creating a request for confirmation information on the received or withdrawn food when the food is determined to have been received or withdrawn; a speech output unit for outputting the request created by the controller as speech; and a speech input unit for receiving the response to the output request as speech, wherein the controller analyzes the response and updates information on the food stored in the storeroom. | 10-15-2015 |
20150302241 | SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PREDICTING THE OUTCOME OF A STATE OF A SUBJECT - Systems and methods for improving the health and wellbeing of subjects in an industrial setting are disclosed. The systems may include a camera arranged so as to observe one or more features of a subject, and a processor, coupled to the camera, the processor configured to analyze one or more images obtained therefrom, to extract one or more features from the image(s) of the subject, and to analyze one or more of the features, or sub features nested therein to predict an outcome of a state of the subject. In particular the system may be configured to generate a diagnostic signal (e.g. an outcome, fever, mastitis, virus, bacterial infection, rut, etc.) based upon the analysis. | 10-22-2015 |
20150310633 | Image Processing System for Soil Characterization - A system processes images of soil using image processing techniques that help to reveal soil characteristics and differences between soil characteristics. The characteristics may be indicative of soil type, and the differences between soil characteristics help to identify where soil types change in a field. The system may determine management zones for a field based on the soil characteristics, e.g., by identifying multiple regions within a field, each management zone corresponding to similar soil characteristics. The system may communicate the management zones to devices in the field, to land appraisers, or to customers who use the results to manage the soil, as just a few examples. | 10-29-2015 |
20150317803 | MEAT ASSESSMENT DEVICE - A method for assessing the quality of a piece of meat may be described. The method may include creating a plurality of cross-sectional images through a piece of meat. The method may additionally include performing image analysis on at least one of the images to determine the arrangement of fat and lean meat within the piece of meat. The arrangement may be indicative of the quality of the piece of meat. | 11-05-2015 |
20150324969 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MICROORGANISM EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSIS USING PARTICLE IMAGING - A system and method for determining the effectiveness of an anaerobic digestion process. The system includes a particle imaging system capable of capturing images of particles, including anaerobic microorganisms, in a fluid and counting those images. The method includes use of the captured image information to relate acquired microorganism information to anaerobic digestion process conditions. The information is further used in the method to adjust the digestion process as may be needed. This allows for an inexpensive means of confirming the bio-assay of an anaerobic sludge and the results of various performance strategies of anaerobic digestion, and may be correlated to a reliable methane output. After verification of the assay genetically, and images correlated to their genetic material, various biological experiments can be performed with exponential reductions in program and laboratory expenditures. | 11-12-2015 |
20150324971 | INFORMATION PROCESSOR, INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM - An information processor includes a detection unit detecting a photographic subject region of an image, a characteristic amount generation unit generating a characteristic amount including at least positional information of the photographic subject region for each of the detected photographic subject region, a combined characteristic amount generation unit generating a combined characteristic amount corresponding to the image by combining the characteristic amount generated for each of the photographic subject region, and an identification unit identifying a label corresponding to a combination of a photographic subject appearing in the image based on the generated combined characteristic amount. | 11-12-2015 |
20150324975 | NON-DESTRUCTIVE IMAGING OF CROP PLANTS - The present disclosure relates to methods for non-destructively assessing yield and/or stress tolerance in crop plants through the use of high-energy particle based imaging and analysis including X rays. Also provided are methods to non-destructively assess transgenic crop plants for the effects of a transgene on yield and/or on stress tolerance. | 11-12-2015 |
20150339540 | IMAGE MEASURING METHOD, SYSTEM, DEVICE, AND PROGRAM - An image measuring system includes: a reflecting body arranged near a plant to be measured; a photographing unit for photographing the reflecting body and outputting the photographed image; an image analyzing unit for detecting, in the photographed image, the area of the reflecting body and acquiring the color information of the area; an absolute spectral irradiance distribution calculating unit for calculating, on the basis of the color information, the absolute spectral irradiance distribution, which is the distribution of the absolute values of the spectral irradiance in the area; a photon flux density calculating unit for calculating, on the basis of the absolute spectral irradiance distribution, the photon flux density; and a Leaf Area Index calculating unit for calculating, on the basis of the photon flux density, the Leaf Area Index. | 11-26-2015 |
20150356721 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DIFFERENTIATING TYPE OF VEGETATION FROM REMOTELY SENSED DATA - A computer system is programmed to analyze data from aerial images and LiDAR data obtained from a region of interest in order to determine whether a group of LiDAR data points representing an individual item of vegetation (i.e. a blob) is a particular type of vegetation. Infrared data from aerial images of the region of interest is stretched and divided by red spectral data to compute an objective-stretched vegetation index value (OVI) for a pixel. The mean LiDAR intensity and the mean OVI for the LiDAR data points and the pixels in the area of a blob are used to predict what type of vegetation is represented in the area of the blob. | 12-10-2015 |
20150356725 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COUNTING ZOOPLANKTON - A method and a system for density measurement of zooplankton in situ in an aqueous solution are described. The method comprised acquiring at least one image of a volume V of the aqueous solution; processing the at least one image and identifying particles in the image; analyzing the identified particles based on a sharpness of each particle, and identifying zooplankton to be counted. | 12-10-2015 |
20150359199 | RAPID AND AUTOMATIC DETERMINATION OF METABOLIC EFFICIENCY IN LIVESTOCK - An apparatus and method for identifying real-time automated, non-invasive infrared thermography information of an animal induced into a non-steady state in order to determine the animal's metabolic efficiency. | 12-17-2015 |
20150359200 | INFRARED THERMOGRAPHY AND BEHAVIOUR INFORMATION FOR IDENTIFICATION OF BIOLOGICALLY IMPORTANT STATES IN ANIMALS - Real-time automated, non-invasive infrared thermography information of a group of animals to be used for both thermal and behavioural measurement, thereby providing an earlier and more accurate predictor of onset of disease, growth states, or reproductive states in an animal within the group. More specifically, the present system and method provide for the use of thermal images to obtain both temperature and behavioural information about one or more animals at a time, and to utilize that information to determine the health, growth, or reproductive state of the animal. The combination of thermal biometric data, such as radio frequency identification infrared thermography, and behavioural biometric information, such as grouping behaviour can be used to detect early-onset of biological states in animals. | 12-17-2015 |
20150359205 | Imaging for Determination of Crustacean Physical Attributes - The present disclosure relates to imaging for determination of crustacean physical attributes. An image of a shell of a live crustacean is captured and processed to determine a physical attribute of the live crustacean. In an embodiment a characteristic of a pattern indicative of moult stage of the live crustacean is detected, from the captured image. Multiple images may be used in some embodiments, including images of different types such as visible spectrum images, infrared spectrum images, and/or ultraviolet spectrum images. | 12-17-2015 |
20150371375 | MERCHANDISE IDENTIFICATION APPARATUS, METHOD OF RECOGNIZING DISCOUNT OF MERCHANDISE, AND FRESHNESS DEGREE LABEL - A merchandise identification apparatus includes an image acquisition unit, a first extraction unit, a second extraction unit, and a determination unit. The image acquisition unit acquires a merchandise image of a merchandise to be purchased. The first extraction unit extracts an image of a freshness degree label from the merchandise image acquired by the image acquisition unit. The second extraction unit extracts image information indicating a degree of freshness of the merchandise from the image of the freshness degree label extracted by the first extraction unit. The determination unit determines a discount to a purchase price of the merchandise according to the image information indicating the degree of freshness of the merchandise extracted by the second extraction unit. | 12-24-2015 |
20150379324 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FILTERING DATA CAPTURED BY A 2D CAMERA - A system comprises a memory operable to store first light intensity information for a first pixel of an image that includes a dairy livestock, and second light intensity information for a second pixel of the image, wherein the second pixel is adjacent to the first pixel. The system further comprises a processor communicatively coupled to the memory and operable to determine that a difference between the first light intensity information and the second light intensity information exceeds a threshold, and discard one of the first pixel or the second pixel from the image. | 12-31-2015 |
20150379350 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DIVIDING PLANT ORGAN POINT CLOUD - Disclosed are a method and system for dividing a plant organ point cloud. According to information about lamina point cloud blocks and stem point cloud blocks in a previous adjacent point cloud frame of a point cloud frame to be divided and a flatness feature of a data point of the point cloud frame to be divided, a point cloud of the point cloud frame to be divided is divided into lamina point cloud blocks and stem point cloud blocks; taking the adjacent point cloud frame as a reference to divide the point cloud frame facilitates the divided organ in maintaining the consistency of time and space between adjacent point cloud frames, and improves the accuracy of plant organ division. When a new lamina point cloud block or a stem point cloud block is discovered, the point cloud in the point cloud frame before the point cloud block to be divided is redivided through tracking back; when redividing, according to information about the lamina point cloud blocks and the stem point cloud blocks in the next adjacent point cloud frame, the point cloud frame to be redivided is divided; and the redivision during tracking back facilitates extracting, from the point cloud frame, a new lamina point cloud block or a stem point cloud block which was not discovered in the previous division process, thereby further improving the accuracy of plant organ division. | 12-31-2015 |
20160012278 | IMAGE ANALYSIS FOR MAKING ANIMAL MEASUREMENTS INCLUDING 3-D IMAGE ANALYSIS | 01-14-2016 |
20160026895 | Alerting system for automatically detecting, categorizing, and locating animals using computer aided image comparisons - Described are systems for (a) monitoring real-time animal activity in an area of interest using computer aided image comparison of a real-time image of the area and reference images of animals of interest and (b) providing informed alerts to a user. | 01-28-2016 |
20160042232 | METHOD OF PREDICTING CROP YIELD LOSS DUE TO N-DEFICIENCY - A method for determining the yield loss of a crop using remote sensor data is described. The yield loss is determined using the reflectivity of light by the crop canopy measured from remote sensor data such as an aerial photograph that is digitized and spatially referenced to the field's longitude and latitude. Pixel values from the aerial photograph, expressed relative to pixel values from well fertilized areas of the field, are transformed to yield losses using a linear transformation that was developed using empirical data. A similar method is described to determine recommended nitrogen fertilization rates for the crop fields. The yield loss data is useful for nitrogen fertilization management, as it allows a producer of crops to weigh the expense of fertilization against the loss of revenue due to yield loss. | 02-11-2016 |
20160048720 | FOOD PREPARATION - A container for providing an enclosure for a food item includes a plurality of grading marks and a docking station to dock an electronic device. Yet further, the system includes a processor configured to take one or more pictures of the food item ( | 02-18-2016 |
20160055399 | GRAPHICAL DISPLAY FOR BIRD OR BAT DETECTION AND IDENTIFICATION - An automated system for mitigating risk from a wind farm. The automated system may include an array of a plurality of image capturing devices independently mounted in a wind farm. The array may include a plurality of low resolution cameras and at least one high resolution camera. The plurality of low resolution cameras may be interconnected and may detect a spherical field surrounding the wind farm. A server is in communication with the array of image capturing devices. The server may automatically analyze images to classify an airborne object captured by the array of image capturing devices in response to receiving the images. | 02-25-2016 |
20160063692 | Automated Food Recognition and Nutritional Estimation With a Personal Mobile Electronic Device - A food recognition assistant system includes technologies to recognize foods and combinations of foods depicted in a digital picture of food. Some embodiments include technologies to estimate portion size and calories, and to estimate nutritional value of the foods. In some embodiments, data identifying recognized foods and related information are generated in an automated fashion without relying on human assistance to identify the foods. In some embodiments, the system includes technologies for achieving automatic food detection and recognition in a real-life setting with a cluttered background, without the images being taken in a controlled lab setting, and without requiring additional user input (such as user-defined bounding boxes). Some embodiments of the system include technologies for personalizing the food classification based on user-specific habits, location and/or other criteria. | 03-03-2016 |
20160063734 | Automated Food Recognition and Nutritional Estimation With a Personal Mobile Electronic Device - A food recognition assistant system includes technologies to recognize foods and combinations of foods depicted in a digital picture of food. Some embodiments include technologies to estimate portion size and calories, and to estimate nutritional value of the foods. In some embodiments, data identifying recognized foods and related information are generated in an automated fashion without relying on human assistance to identify the foods. In some embodiments, the system includes technologies for achieving automatic food detection and recognition in a real-life setting with a cluttered background, without the images being taken in a controlled lab setting, and without requiring additional user input (such as user-defined bounding boxes). Some embodiments of the system include technologies for personalizing the food classification based on user-specific habits, location and/or other criteria. | 03-03-2016 |
20160066546 | SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING FEED CONSUMPTION OF AT LEAST ONE ANIMAL - The invention regards an animal monitoring system for determining feed consumption of one or more animals feeding at a feeding area, comprising an imaging unit for range imaging the feeding area, identification means configured to uniquely identify each feeding animal, and processing means configured for assessing the amount of feed consumed by each identified animal by determining the reduction of feed in subsequent images of the feeding area in front of each identified animal. | 03-10-2016 |
20160070972 | System and method for determining a pet breed from an image - An image of a pet's face may be processed in order to determine a type of breed of the pet. The processing of the pet's image uses a multi-agent classifier. The multi-agent classifier comprises a plurality of individually trained agents that each classify the image to identify the potential breed or breeds of the image. The predicted breeds from each of the agents are then combined into the final breed prediction. | 03-10-2016 |
20160070977 | Device And Method For The Classification Of A Food Item Of An Organic Or Irregular Structure - An apparatus for classifying a food item of organic or irregular structure includes an image capture unit, a data input unit, and a data output unit. An evaluation unit is connected to said image capture unit, to said data input unit and to said data output unit. The image capture unit captures the food item as optical data and provides the optical data in transmittable form for transmission to the evaluation unit. The evaluation unit extracts feature values of the food item from the optical data. The feature values are combined to form a feature value tuple for the food item. The feature value tuple is automatically assignable to a feature value tuple range. The feature value tuple range is formed by one or more feature value tuples. The feature value tuple range is assigned a class. The data input unit is used to perform an assignment of the class to the feature value tuple range. | 03-10-2016 |
20160071257 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PARAMETERIZING A PLANT - An apparatus for parameterizing a plant includes a recorder for recording a three-dimensional data set of the plant including not only volume elements of non-covered elements of the plant, but also volume elements of elements of the plants that are covered by other elements, and a parameterizer for parameterizing the three-dimensional data set for obtaining plant parameters. | 03-10-2016 |
20160078304 | CROP QUALITY SENSOR BASED ON SPECULAR REFLECTANCE - A crop quality sensor, comprising an illumination source, an imaging device, and a processor executing application software. The illumination source is shone onto a crop sample, and an image is taken with the imaging device of the illuminated crop sample. The software executing on the processor is used to analyze the image to identify the outlines of individual kernels and to identify which of those outlines contain a specular highlight, indicative that the kernel is whole and unbroken, while the absence of such a specular highlight is indicative of a broken kernel. | 03-17-2016 |
20160078611 | NON-IMAGE-BASED GRAIN QUALITY SENSOR - A grain quality sensor comprising a lens, a filter, a photosite array, an illumination source, and an electronics module, wherein the illumination source directs light containing a known set of wavelengths onto a crop sample, wherein the lens picks up light reflected by the crop sample and directs it into the filter, which allows light to pass into different parts of the photosite array such that certain locations on the photosite array only get certain frequencies of the reflected light, wherein the electronics module is electrically connected to the photosite array and capable of determining which parts of the photosite array received light and what frequency the light received was, wherein the electronics module can analyze the optical data received by the photosite array, and wherein the analysis of the optical data is used to determine the composition of different parts of the crop sample. | 03-17-2016 |
20160086032 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COLLECTING IMAGE DATA - An evaluator can determine whether there is a material change in the observed parameter of a crop or field with respect to average measurements of the observed parameter. A location-determining receiver is adapted to determine a location of a vehicle corresponding to the material change in the observed parameter. An imaging device is adapted to collect the image data for a time interval associated with the material change. A data processor is arranged for associating the image data with the corresponding location data and storing the image data and corresponding location data in a data storage device. | 03-24-2016 |
20160092723 | ELAPSED-TIME DETERMINATION APPARATUS, DECIDING APPARATUS, DECIDING METHOD, AND NON-TRANSITORY COMPUTER-READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM STORING CONTROL PROGRAM - An elapsed-time determination apparatus includes: a storage unit that stores correlation information indicating a correlation between a state of a melanophore of a fish and an amount of time elapsed since the death of the fish; an acquisition unit that acquires an image of a fish; an analysis unit that detects a state of a melanophore of a fish by analyzing an image acquired by the acquisition unit; and a determination unit that determines the amount of time elapsed since the death of the fish in accordance with the state of the melanophore of the fish detected by the analysis unit, based on the correlation information, and outputs determination results. | 03-31-2016 |
20160093037 | Object Characterization - Various aspects of the present disclosure are directed to characterizing objects or other items, which as may be implemented in a machine-vision type approach. As may be implemented with one or more embodiments, some of which may involve a Fourier transform analysis, object regions (one or more objects) are identified in image data depicting several objects, and the size of each object-region is identified. Respective ratios of the size of each object-region to the size of each of the other object regions are determined, and object regions having a higher total number of ratios that round to one (relative to the other object regions) are identified. An expected (e.g., average) individual object size is determined based on the sizes of the identified object regions, and a total number of the objects in the image is determined based on the expected individual object size and the sizes of the object regions. | 03-31-2016 |
20160125222 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IDENTIFYING TREES - A system and method of detecting trees in an image. A system and method may receive a dimension related to the trees in an input image. A two dimensional (2D) high pass filter may be applied to the input image to produce a high pass image. Objects may be marked in the high pass image based on the dimension. A processed image may be produced by associating a set of pixels in the high pass image with a respective set of grayscale values. A density operator may be applied to the processed image to identify locations with high frequency changes. Shapes may be defined to include the locations. Trees may be identified by grouping one or more shapes. | 05-05-2016 |
20160125276 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR MARKING ANIMALS - The invention provides, in one aspect, a computerized method for graphically marking an animal for display to a user. The method includes retrieving, with a first computing device (e.g., a smartphone), one or more animal metrics (e.g., weight) from a data store, and capturing, with a second computing device (e.g., Google Glass or similar device) coupled to the first computing device, an image of an animal. The method further includes transmitting, from the second computing device to the first computing device, the captured image of the animal, and identifying, with the first computing device, an animal in the captured image. The method associates, with the first computing device, the identified animal with one or more of the metrics retrieved from the data store, and displays, with the second computing device, one or more visual cues (e.g., colors) based upon the associated one or more metrics retrieved from the data store. | 05-05-2016 |
20160140706 | System and Method for Estimating Age of an Animal - The system and method of the invention utilizes computer software to determine an estimation of the age of an animal by measuring, analyzing, comparing, calculating, and presenting age features and the age of animals such as deer, moose, elk, bovids, pronghorns and the like from digital data and/or photographs of the animals. | 05-19-2016 |
20160154823 | TEMPLATE-BASED RECOGNITION OF FOOD PRODUCT INFORMATION | 06-02-2016 |
20160163037 | ESTMATION OF FOOD VOLUME AND CARBS - There is disclosed a system for estimating the volume of food on a plate, for example meal, with a mobile device. The system uses a camera and a light pattern projector. Images of the food with and without a projected light pattern on it enable to compute the tridimensional shape and volume, while image segmentation and recognition steps estimate one or more food types in said images. By applying accessible knowledge databases, the carbs content is estimated and the associated insulin bolus doses are provided. Developments comprise coding of the light pattern, different light sources and associated wavelengths, motion compensations, additional optics, estimation of fat content and associated multi-wave boluses. The invention can be implemented in a glucometer or in an insulin pump controller provided with a test strip port or with a mobile phone. | 06-09-2016 |
20160171302 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MANAGING WATER | 06-16-2016 |
20160171680 | Systems and Methods for Satellite Image Processing to Estimate Crop Yield | 06-16-2016 |
20160178539 | METHOD OF ANALYSING GROUND COFFEE | 06-23-2016 |
20160180515 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MARKING EDIBLE OBJECT | 06-23-2016 |
20160189007 | GRAIN QUALITY MONITORING - A method and non-transitory computer-readable medium capture an image of bulk grain and apply a feature extractor to the image to determine a feature of the bulk grain in the image. For each of a plurality of different sampling locations in the image, based upon the feature of the bulk grain at the sampling location, a determination is made regarding a classification score for the presence of a classification of material at the sampling location. A quality of the bulk grain of the image is determined based upon an aggregation of the classification scores for the presence of the classification of material at the sampling locations. | 06-30-2016 |
20160192865 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY DISCOVERING, CHARACTERIZING, CLASSIFYING AND SEMI-AUTOMATICALLY LABELING ANIMAL BEHAVIOR AND QUANTITATIVE PHENOTYPING OF BEHAVIORS IN ANIMALS | 07-07-2016 |
20160198679 | SYSTEM FOR UNIQUELY IDENTIFYING SUBJECTS FROM A TARGET POPULATION | 07-14-2016 |
20180025254 | GRAIN QUALITY MONITORING | 01-25-2018 |
20180025480 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ANALYSIS OF GROWING ITEMS | 01-25-2018 |
20190145949 | DIAGNOSTIC SUPPORT FOR SKINS AND INSPECTION METHOD OF SKIN | 05-16-2019 |
20190147249 | RECOGNITION OF WEED IN A NATURAL ENVIRONMENT | 05-16-2019 |
20190147567 | METHOD OF PROCESSING AN IMAGE | 05-16-2019 |
20220138987 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR OPTICAL YIELD MEASUREMENT OF A STANDING CROP IN A FIELD - An electronic data processor is configured to identify the component pixels of a harvestable plant component within the obtained image data of plant pixels of the one or more target plants. An edge, boundary or outline of the component pixels is determined. The data processor is configured to detect a size of the harvestable plant component based on the determined edge, boundary or outline of the identified component pixels. A user interface is configured to provide an aggregate, sectional yield, or per row yield based on a detected size of the harvestable plant component for the one or more target plants as an indicator of yield of the one or more plants or standing crop in the field. | 05-05-2022 |
20220139082 | IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE, IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD, AND PROGRAM - Calculation of NDVI values with reduced errors caused by variations of sun-light reflection-vs-incidence angles is disclosed. One example of a device includes a data processor that retrieves an image captured by a camera and analyzes the retrieved image to calculate NDVI values indicating activity levels of a plant. The data processor selects plural sampling points from among constituent pixels of the retrieved image, calculates a sampling-point two-dimensional distribution approximation model formula that approximates a two-dimensional distribution of NDVI values and sun-light reflection-vs-incidence angles at the selected sampling points, generates, on the basis of the calculated sampling-point two-dimensional distribution approximation model formula, a corrected NDVI value calculation formula for calculating corrected NDVI values obtained by reducing variations of the NDVI values caused by variations of the sun-light reflection-vs-incidence angles, and calculates the corrected NDVI values according to the generated corrected NDVI value calculation formula. | 05-05-2022 |