About & Methodology
What we plan to build and how we will evaluate it
Everything described on this page is planned work. Nothing here has been completed or validated yet.
Problem and motivation
Plants in small growing environments can show visible signs of stress, such as yellowing or a shrinking green area, that are easy to miss without regular observation. Environmental conditions often help explain these changes.
We want to explore whether fixed-camera images and simple environmental measurements can support earlier, explainable observations — where each observation is accompanied by the evidence behind it.
Intended users
People who care for plants in small, controlled spaces — for example hobby growers, small indoor setups, or educational and research environments — who would benefit from clear, evidence-based observations.
Objectives and scope
- Collect fixed-camera images alongside air temperature, relative humidity, soil moisture and light measurements.
- Compare three analysis approaches under the same conditions.
- Present observations with supporting visual and environmental evidence.
- Display the analysis application's outputs on this website.
Out of scope: definitive disease diagnosis and large-scale or outdoor deployments.
Three approaches we plan to compare
Approach 1
Single-image analysis
Examine each captured image independently for visible signs such as yellowing or reduced green area.
Approach 2
Temporal analysis
Compare successive images over time to detect persistent changes rather than one-off variations.
Approach 3
Image + sensor fusion
Combine image observations with environmental measurements to provide richer context for each observation.
Planned evaluation metrics
- Detection performance
- How reliably relevant visible changes are identified.
- False alerts
- Alerts raised when no relevant change occurred.
- Missed events
- Relevant changes that were not flagged.
- Detection delay
- Time between a change occurring and it being reported.
Proposed system architecture
- Cameras & sensors
- Data collection & storage
- Analysis application
- Results API
- Website dashboard
A separate application handles data collection, image analysis and alert generation. This website only displays its outputs.
Expected outputs and limitations
Expected outputs
- A working monitoring prototype.
- A comparison of the three approaches.
- An explainable observation and alert history on the dashboard.
- A final report, presentation and poster.
Limitations
- Small environments and a limited number of plants.
- Results may not generalise to other species, lighting or setups.
- Observations indicate visible changes, not confirmed diagnoses.