Plant image analysis tools: current trends and future challenges
The past decade has seen the apparition of a tremendous amount of plant image analysis tools. This "Golden Age" was born from the conjuncture of two main factors. On the one hand, it was driven by an increasing demand from the plant science community for faithful and reproductible phenotyping data. On the other hand, it was empowered by a greater access to digital sensors and an increase in computer power. As a results, there are now more than 110 tools available for scientists, ranging from the dynamic analysis of cell components to the quantification of tree canopies.
Here we propose to make an overview of existing plant image analysis software tools. Taking advantage of the ressources available online on the plant-image-analysis.org database [1], we will analyse the main trends in tool development and present the current limitations and gaps in the domain. In particular, we will highlight the importance of (i) increasing collaboration between plant image analysis groups and (2) the need for plant image validation dataset.
[1] Lobet, Draye and Périlleux (2013) Plant Methods 9 (38)