Tobacco Leaf Area Growth Simulation with the Variational Level Set Method

In this paper, we propose a simulation of the area growth process of the tobacco leaf. A signed distance function represents the leaf, and the Variational Level Set Method tracks the evolution of the interface between the leaf and the background. The evolution of that interface is guided by an energy function that depends on internal and external characteristics. The internal energy helps to keep the interface as a signed distance function that avoids reinitialization and therefore enhances the result. The external energy helps to recreate the shape of the tobacco leaf using a reference image as input. We also discuss a special treatment for the senescence stage of the leaf and describe the method and its configuration parameters. In this paper, the focus is on replicating the area growth pattern. Therefore, we measure the area and compare it with real data from plant measurements to validate our work. We use L1 error to numerically assess the output.