Segmentation and focus-point location based on boundary analysis in forest canopy hemispherical photography

Analysis of forest canopy hemisphere images is one of the most important methods for measuring forest canopy structure parameters. In this study, our main focus was on using circular image region segmentation, which is the basis of forest canopy hemispherical photography. The boundary of a forest canopy hemisphere image was analyzed via histogram, rectangle, and Fourier descriptors. The image boundary characteristics were defined and obtained based on the following: (1) an edge model that contains three parts, i.e., step, ramp, and roof; (2) boundary points of discontinuity; (3) an edge that has a linear distribution of scattering points. On this basis, we proposed a segmentation method for the circular region in a forest canopy hemisphere image, fitting the circular boundary and computing the center and radius by the least squares method. The method was unrelated to the parameters of the image acquisition device. Hence, this study lays a foundation for automatically adjusting the parameters of high-performance image acquisition devices used in forest canopy hemispherical photography.