Tree Skeleton Extraction from a Single Range Image

Abstract

Tree skeleton computation is of significance in the geometric modeling of botanic trees and in the application of forestry. This paper describes an approach to extract branch skeletons from a single range image of a tree. A basis of this approach is that the trunk and branches are modeled by generalized circular cylinders, and the tree skeleton is defined as the connected curve-axes of these cylinders. In the proposed system, the range image is partitioned into patches at first based on the discontinuity of depth and axis direction, where each patch only contains points from the same branch. Then each patch is fitted with a series of circular cylinders. Finally the tree skeleton is generated by sequentially connecting the skeleton points of fitted cylinders. This work shows that cylinder fitting can be used to handle the incompleteness of input data, and generate accurate skeleton points and corresponding radii. The main contribution of this paper is that we proposed a new definition and computation of tree skeletons and introduced an efficient and robust cylinder fitting method. Experiment shows the effectiveness of this approach.