Plant growing analyzing system and method

• US 7,499,573 B2
• Filed: 07/12/2004
• Issued: 03/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Ishizuka, Toru, Kanetomo, Masafumi, Shinomura, Tomoko, Tanabata, Takanari
• Primary Examiner(s): Strege; John B
• Application Number:
  US10/887,931
• Publication Number:
  US 20050180608A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,695 Days
• Field of Search: 382/110, 382/152, 382/294
• US Class Current: 382/110
• CPC Class Codes: A01G 7/00 Botany in general
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 2035/0494 Detecting or compensating piositioning errors
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/13 Moving of cuvettes or solid samples to or from the investigating station handling materials for automatic analysis G01N35/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 21/253 for batch operation, i.e. multisample apparatus analytical automats G01N35/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/00 Pattern recognition
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/147 Details of sensors, e.g. sensor lenses fingerprint or palmprint sensors G06V40/13; vascular sensors G06V40/145; eye sensors G06V40/19
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/245 by locating a pattern; Special marks for positioning
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/188 Vegetation

Abstract

There are provided an image acquisition system capable of storing high-accuracy measurement of changes in the shape of a plant growing process in image information with high accuracy and an analyzing method for analyzing an acquired image to analyze plant growing.

There is provided a plant growing analyzing system having operation detection means of a conveying mechanism of a plant in order that an observed plant in an image is photographed at a constantly fixed position or angle; a position detecting mark in the acquired image; a computation part for evaluating detected data to control a conveying amount; and a conveying control part, wherein the growing process of many plants is stored in image information in a long period, and the stored image is used to realize high-accuracy measurement.

Claims

1. An observed object growing analyzing system comprising:

a plurality of cases for growing observed objects;

conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases;

image acquisition means outputting electronic image information on the observed objects in said plurality of cases;

means processing an image acquired by said image acquisition means;

first storing means temporarily storing a processed result by said image processing means;

means controlling a conveying amount for evaluating based on said temporarily stored result whether the conveying amount of said case is suitable or not, and when determining it is not suitable, correcting position of said case; and

second storing means acquiring electronic image information on the observed objects in said plurality of cases again by said image acquisition means in the corrected case position and storing image information acquired again and image information when determining the conveying amount of said case is suitable

image acquisition means capable of outputting electronic image information on the operation state of the conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases; and

means evaluating based on the result obtained by image processing said image acqiuired by said image acquisition means whether the operation of said case conveying means is suitable or not, and when it is not suitable, displaying or giving an alarm of it.

2. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 1, further comprising means sequentially displaying image information stored in said second storing means.

3. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 1, wherein a deviation amount of part of a plant is obtained from image information stored in said second storing means, and changes in the deviation amount with time are converted into numbers to be applied to growing analyzing of the plant.

4. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 1, wherein the conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases conveys said cases on the rotation track and allows the same case to be opposite said image acquisition means for each rotation.

5. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 4, wherein said image acquisition means acquiring an image after said case is conveyed to the position opposite said image acquisition means and a predetermined time elapses.

6. An observed object growing analyzing system comprising:

a plurality of cases for growing observed objects;

conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases;

image acquisition means outputting electronic image information on the observed objects in said plurality of cases and position detecting mark on each of said plurality of cases;

means processing an image acquired by said image acquisition means;

first storing means temporarily storing a processed result by said image processing means;

means controlling a conveying amount for evaluating based on said temporarily stored result whether the conveying amount of said case is suitable or not, and when determining it is not suitable, correcting position of said case; and

second storing means acquiring electronic image information on the observed objects in said plurality of cases again by said image acquisition means in the corrected case position and storing image information acquired again and image information when determining the conveying amount of said case is suitable

image acquisition means capable of outputting electronic image information on the operation state of the conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases; and

means evaluating based on the result obtained by image processing said image acquired by said image acquisition means whether the operation of said case conveying means is suitable or not, and when it is not suitable, displaying or giving an alarm of it.

7. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 6, further comprising means sequentially displaying image information stored in said second storing means.

8. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 6, wherein a deviation amount of part of a plant is obtained from image information stored in said second storing means, and changes in the deviation amount with time are converted into numbers to be applied to growing analyzing of the plant.

9. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 6, wherein the conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases conveys said cases on the rotation track and allows the same case to be opposite said image acquisition means for each rotation.

10. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 9, wherein said image acquisition means acquiring an image after said case is conveyed to the position opposite said image acquisition means and a predetermined time elapses.

11. An observed object growing analyzing system comprising:

a plurality of cases for growing observed objects;

a plurality of conveying means for placing each of said plurality of cases and automatically conveying it;

image acquisition means outputting electronic image information on the observed objects in said plurality of cases;

means processing an image acquired by said image acquisition means;

first storing means temporarily storing a processed result by said image processing means;

means controlling a conveying amount for evaluating based on said temporarily stored result whether the conveying amount of said case is suitable or not, and when determining it is not suitable, correcting position of said case; and

second storing means acquiring electronic image information on the observed objects in said plurality of cases again by said image acquisition means in the corrected case position and storing image information acquired again and image information when determining the conveying amount of said case is suitable

image acquisition means capable of outputting electronic image information on the operation state of the conveying means for conveying said plurality of cases; and

means evaluating based on the result obtained by image processing said image acquired by said image acquisition means whether the operation of said case conveying means is suitable or not, and when it is not suitable, displaying or giving an alarm of it.

12. The observed object growing analyzing, system according to claim 11, wherein said plurality of conveying means for automatic conveying travel on a predetermined route by guiding means provided on a plane and said conveying means are controlled by a conveying control signal transmitted by a wireless method.

13. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 12, wherein the guiding means conveys said case on the rotation track and allows the same case to be opposite said image acquisition means for each rotation.

14. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 13, wherein said image acquisition means acquiring an image after said case is conveyed to the position opposite said image acquisition means and a predetermined time elapses.

15. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 11, further comprising means sequentially displaying image information stored in said second storing means.

16. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 11, wherein a deviation amount of part of a plant is obtained from image information stored in said second storing means, and changes in the deviation amount with time are converted into numbers to be applied to growing analyzing of the plant.

17. The observed object growing analyzing system according to claim 11, wherein noting data on the boundary of said image acquired by said image acquisition means, whether the position of the case opposite said image acquisition means is suitable or not is evaluated.