Extending the Aerial Image Analysis from the Detection of Tree Crowns

In this study, we explore some possibilities of using aerial images captured by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and discuss the benefits of using them in the context of intelligent agriculture. A novel method that supports the detection and segmentation of tree crowns, the delineation of shadows, and which shows the direction of sunlight is presented. It uses simple observation strategies and commonly used digital image processing techniques such as visual color enhancement and perception, morphological operations, and segmentation based on a region growing method. The proposal is evaluated using a dataset with different types of crop areas and pasture lands. The results indicate that the proposal can effectively deal with the detection and segmentation of elements of interest in the scene, as well as the indication of the right side of the light source.