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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.16480 |
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| _version_ | 1866913041722900480 |
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| author | Lin, Yida Xue, Bing Zhang, Mengjie Schofield, Sam Green, Richard |
| author_facet | Lin, Yida Xue, Bing Zhang, Mengjie Schofield, Sam Green, Richard |
| contents | This paper presents a stereo-vision-based system mounted on a drone for detecting and localising radiata pine branches to support autonomous pruning. The proposed pipeline comprises two stages: branch segmentation and depth estimation. For segmentation, YOLOv8, YOLOv9, and Mask R-CNN variants are compared on a custom dataset of 71 stereo image pairs captured with a ZED Mini camera. For depth estimation, both a traditional method (SGBM with WLS filtering) and deep-learning-based methods (PSMNet, ACVNet, GWCNet, MobileStereoNet, RAFT-Stereo, and NeRF-Supervised Deep Stereo) are evaluated. A centroid-based triangulation algorithm with MAD outlier rejection is proposed to compute branch distance from the segmentation mask and disparity map. Qualitative evaluation at distances of 1-2 m indicates that the deep learning-based disparity maps produce more coherent depth estimates than SGBM, demonstrating the feasibility of low-cost stereo vision for automated branch positioning in forestry. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_16480 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Positioning radiata pine branches requiring pruning by drone stereo vision Lin, Yida Xue, Bing Zhang, Mengjie Schofield, Sam Green, Richard Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition This paper presents a stereo-vision-based system mounted on a drone for detecting and localising radiata pine branches to support autonomous pruning. The proposed pipeline comprises two stages: branch segmentation and depth estimation. For segmentation, YOLOv8, YOLOv9, and Mask R-CNN variants are compared on a custom dataset of 71 stereo image pairs captured with a ZED Mini camera. For depth estimation, both a traditional method (SGBM with WLS filtering) and deep-learning-based methods (PSMNet, ACVNet, GWCNet, MobileStereoNet, RAFT-Stereo, and NeRF-Supervised Deep Stereo) are evaluated. A centroid-based triangulation algorithm with MAD outlier rejection is proposed to compute branch distance from the segmentation mask and disparity map. Qualitative evaluation at distances of 1-2 m indicates that the deep learning-based disparity maps produce more coherent depth estimates than SGBM, demonstrating the feasibility of low-cost stereo vision for automated branch positioning in forestry. |
| title | Positioning radiata pine branches requiring pruning by drone stereo vision |
| topic | Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.16480 |