Computer reconstruction of plant growth and chlorophyll fluorescence emission in three spatial dimensions

Plant leaves grow and change their orientation as well their emission of chlorophyll fluorescence in time. All these dynamic plant properties can be semi-automatically monitored by a 3D imaging system that generates plant models by the method of coded light illumination, fluorescence imaging and computer 3D reconstruction. Here, we describe the essentials of the method, as well as the system hardware. We show that the technique can reconstruct, with a high fidelity, the leaf size, the leaf angle and the plant height. The method fails with wilted plants when leaves overlap obscuring their true area. This effect, naturally, also interferes when the method is applied to measure plant growth under water stress. The method is, however, very potent in capturing the plant dynamics under mild stress and without stress. The 3D reconstruction is also highly effective in correcting geometrical factors that distort measurements of chlorophyll fluorescence emission of naturally positioned plant leaves.