Photorealistic Modeling of the Growth of Filamentous Specimens

We present a new method for modeling the development of settled specimens with filamentous growth patterns, such as fungi and oomycetes. In phytopathology, the growth parameters of such microorganisms are frequently examined. Their development is documented repeatedly, in a defined time sequence, leaving the growth pattern incomplete. This restriction can be overcome by reconstructing the missing images from the images acquired at consecutive observation sessions. Image warping is a convenient tool for such purposes. In the proposed method, the parameters of the geometric transformation are estimated by means of the growth tracking based on the morphological skeleton. The result is a sequence of photorealistic artificial images that show the development of the specimen within the interval between observations