2009 Environment Award Laureate
Dr. Sean M. White: LeafView: an Electronic Field Guide
| Laureate Country: United States |
| Project Country: United States |
| Website: http://herbarium.cs.columbia.edu |
| Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/TechMuseumChannel#p/u/53E31CA6778E02F5/6/oRh7Ya11W2E |
Sean White developed LeafView: an Electronic Field Guide to enable automated identification of plants, access to herbaria, and data collection in the field.
Traditional field guides are difficult to search and time is running out for botanists to identify the world's undescribed plants before climate change and development erase their living record.
In collaboration with Columbia University, University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution, White developed human-computer interfaces that automatically identify plant species. The Electronic Field Guide incorporates a camera that acquires images for classification using computer vision algorithms. Context data such as GPS location is stored with images and identification results. By providing efficient access to digital herbaria, the discovery and identification of the remaining undescribed plants and inventory of existing ecological sites can be accelerated.
