Guiding Active Contours for Tree Leaf Segmentation and Identification

In the process of tree identification from pictures of leaves in a natural background, retrieving an accurate contour is a challenging and crucial issue. In this paper we introduce a method designed to deal with the obstacles raised by such complex images, for simple and lobed tree leaves. A first segmentation step based on a light polygonal leaf model is first performed, and later used to guide the evolution of an active contour. Combining global shape descriptors given by the polygonal model with local curvature-based features, the leaves are then classified over nearly 50 tree species.