Topological Image Analysis and Reeb Graph Representations for Plant Phenotyping

This paper discusses the use of topological imageanalysis to derive characteristics needed in plant phenotyping.Due to certain features of root systems (deformation over time,overlaps of branches in a 2D image of the root system) a topolog-ical analysis is needed to correctly derive these characteristics.The advantages of such a topological analysis are highlightedin this paper and root phenotyping is presented as a newapplication for computational topology. Characteristics used inplant phenotyping that can be derived from root images usingmethods of topological image analysis are further presented. AReeb graph based representation of root images is shown asan example for such a topological analysis. Based on a graphrepresentation a new, normalised representation of root imagesis introduced.