Sarracenia pitcher plants

Trait and color analysis for top-down images of pitcher plants, built with ilastik, OpenCV, and Deep Plant Phenomics. Developed for images obtained from an experiment performed by Mason McNair at the University of Georgia.

• About
  • Layout
  • References
• Installation
  • Using Docker
  • Using Singularity
  • Installing the Python package
  • Jupyter notebooks
  • Setting up a development environment
    • Developing with Docker
    • Using a virtual Python environment
      • venv
      • Anaconda
• Usage
  • Image name format
  • Commands
    • Pixel classification
    • Plant segmentation
    • Color analysis

About

This repository does a few things:

• pixel classification
• plant segmentation
• color distribution analysis

Pixel Classification	Plant Segmentation	Color Analysis

Layout

Some sample images and data are included in samples. The Python module and CLI are defined in pytcherplants. Analysis is in notebooks.

References

Pixel classification (via Ilastik) adapted from Peter Pietrzyk's DIRTmu. Segmentation and analysis adapted from SMART by Suxing Liu.

Installation

Docker or Singularity are recommended to run this project. The Ilastik pixel classification model necessary for certain commands is baked into the Docker image definition.

Using Docker

The Docker image is available on Docker Hub at wbonelli/pytcherplants. To open an interactive shell with your current working directory mounted to /opt/dev inside the container:

docker run -it -v $(pwd):/opt/dev -w /opt/dev wbonelli/pytcherplants bash

Using Singularity

To open an interactive shell:

singularity shell wbonelli/pytcherplants

Note that Singularity automatically mounts the current working directory; there is no need to manually load a volume.

Installing the Python package

The pytcherplants Python package can be installed with pip, e.g. pip install pytcherplants. Note that the pixel classification commands expect Ilastik to be installed at /opt/ilastik/ilastik-1.4.0b21-gpu-Linux/.

Jupyter notebooks

To run a local Jupyter notebook server from a suitable python environment (i.e., with jupyter and all the dependencies in requirements.txt installed; see below):

jupyter notebook --allow-root

The Jupyter UI should automatically open. Then navigate to the notebooks directory to open a notebook.

Setting up a development environment

Clone the repo with git clone https://github.com/w-bonelli/pitcherplants.git.

Developing with Docker

The Docker image can be built from the project root with docker build -t <image tag> -f Dockerfile ..

Using a virtual Python environment

Alternatively, a virtual environment can be used.

venv

First use python3 -m venv to create a virtual environment. Then activate it with source bin/activate and install dependencies with pip: pip install -r requirements.txt. Deactivate the environment with source deactivate.

Anaconda

First create an environment:

conda create --name <environment name> --file requirements.txt python=3.8 anaconda

Any Python3.6+ should support the dependencies in requirements.txt. The environment can be activated with source activate <your environment name> and deactivated with source deactivate.

Usage

The Python CLI includes commands for processing individual image files, directories of images, and CSV files containing aggregate data.

Image name format

The various CLI commands expect image file names to conform to date.treatment.name.ext, where dates are _-delimited triples %m_%d_%y. For instance:

• 10_14_19.Calmag.p003.jpg
• 1_14_19.Control.p008.JPG

Commands

There are two commands:

• classify
• segment
• analyze

Pixel classification

To classify foreground (plant tissue) and background pixels in an image (i.e. to segment the plant from its surroundings), use the classify command:

pypl classify -i <image file> -o <output directory>

By default JPG, PNG, and TIFF files are supported. You can select one or the other by passing e.g. png or jpg to the --filetypes flag (shorthand -ft).

Plant segmentation

pypl segment -i <image file> -o <output directory>

You can specify the number of plants per image by providing an integer argument -c (--count), as well as the minimum contour area argument -m (--min_area). The former defaults to 1. If the latter is absent, no minimum is applied.

This will produce an output image <output directory>/<image file stem>.plants.jpg with each contour labelled, as well as one or more output images e.g. <output directory>/<image file stem>.plant.0.jpg, as many as there were plants detected in the input image.

Color analysis

Use the analyze command to analyze an image's distribution. The image is assumed to have already been segmented and cropped, with background pixels either white or black. The image may contain any number of foreground contours (individual plants).

pypl analyze -i <masked image file> -o <output directory>

To explicitly set the number of clusters for k-means clustering, use the -k (--clusters) flag.