A deep learning generative model approach for image synthesis of plant leaves.

Journal: PloS one
Published Date:

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: A well-known drawback to the implementation of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image-recognition is the intensive annotation effort for large enough training dataset, that can become prohibitive in several applications. In this study we focus on applications in the agricultural domain and we implement Deep Learning (DL) techniques for the automatic generation of meaningful synthetic images of plant leaves, which can be used as a virtually unlimited dataset to train or validate specialized CNN models or other image-recognition algorithms.

Authors

  • Alessandro Benfenati
    Dept. of Environmental Science and Policy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
  • Davide Bolzi
    Dept. of Mathematics, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
  • Paola Causin
    Dept. of Mathematics, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.
  • Roberto Oberti
    Dept. of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences-Production, Landscape, Agroenergy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy.