5 ms·

Flora Incognita – free AI-supported plant identification university project

103 points by retro_guy 3y ago

candiddevmike 3y ago
How does this compare to Seek?
- retro_guy 3y ago
  I had not much success with Seek when it comes to plants. However, its variant iNaturalist is not bad for identifying insects if you take good photos and spend some time sifting through the results suggested by the app. Flora Incognita is more like the PictureThis app with focus on the plants growing naturally in local ecosystems.
  - culi 3y ago
    Seek actually just got a major overhaul a few days ago. Most other plant-identification apps heavily rely on citizen science data generated by iNaturalist anyways
acabal 3y ago
This is a really excellent app, I use it all the time in my garden. I planted native plants, and as they sprout every year it's very hard to tell them apart from weeds at first. But Flora Incognito does a great job of identifying most plants correctly even as they're just sprouting for the season.
- retro_guy 3y ago
  It is also worth noting that they have recently greatly improved their AI: https://floraincognita.com/blog/2023/04/18/press-release-new-ai-for-flora-incognita/ https://floraincognita.com/blog/2023/04/18/press-release-new...
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
voisin 3y ago
Really excited to try this out. I have installed Picture This in the past but they push heavily for a subscription which makes no sense for me when I only identify a few plants per year. Their business model is awful given that I suspect most people don’t have a regular need to identify plants.
neilv 3y ago
AFAICT, it's neither open source software, nor open data.
contingencies 3y ago
This appears to be a German effort. Compare the California Academy of Science effort: https://www.inaturalist.org/sites/network https://www.inaturalist.org/sites/network and https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/terms https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/terms and https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7 https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425... and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export
mgerdts 3y ago
I tried it out around the yard and it correctly identified a variety of native flowering plants (in and past their prime), a couple trees (one native to the region, one about 400 miles from its native range), and a few ferns. The only one I'm pretty certain it got wrong was misidentifying a ghost fern as a Japanese painted fern (I have both, they are rather easily distinguished). When I tried to suggest that the misidentified fern was a ghost fern, it was unknown to the app so I couldn't suggest it.
- culi 3y ago
  Did you try to suggest by the common name or the Latin name? It's highly unlikely that the app would have all the common names of all the plants. Even the common name "ghost fern" refers to a few different plants. Most commonly in the ornamental plant trade it refers to a hybrid variety called Athyrium x hybrida 'Ghost' The other major issue with ornamental plants is that they're often selected for very particular physiological characteristics. This often leads to plants that visually look very different from their wild ancestor but are still extremely closely genetically related. If you've ever had a variety of a plant with variegated leaves for example, you'll probably trip apps like these up a lot. It's simply too difficult to keep up with all the new ornamentals being bred every year. The data just doesn't exist and they're quite often weird hybrids with uncertain phylogenetics anyways
  - kfrzcode 3y ago
    Interesting...seems like a generalized issue with identification type AI?
    - culi 3y ago
      Eh I wouldn't say that. You can selective breed certain plants to look extremely similar to other plants over the course of even a single year. As in, you would be able to trick a human being as well. If AI is making the same mistakes as a human, I don't really think it's a problem with the model as much as a limitation of the data I mean taxonomists themselves have often been proven incredibly wrong once phylogenetic studies have been conducted. There's simply major limitations to identifying a species by it's physical characteristics alone. Not to mention you don't get to, for example, smell, touch, taste, or watch something over time. Really it's incredible how accurate they even are already
shiggaz 3y ago
What about fungi? :(
- retro_guy 3y ago
  See ShroomID - https://shroom.id/ https://shroom.id/
- dendrite9 3y ago
  iNaturalist has been pretty good for me with fungi and slime molds. You don't even have to save the report, just start by uploading your pictures and then looking at the suggested species. If you have multiple pictures it's worth moving between them, the classifier only works on one picture at a time.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
jplona 3y ago
I've had pretty good results with Google Lens in the past, but occasional misses as well. I'll have to check if this fills the gaps.
mfkp 3y ago
I've only used PlantNet in the past. Worked well for me the few times I've used it. https://plantnet.org/en/ https://plantnet.org/en/
- culi 3y ago
  Whichever one you're using is probably borrowing massively from iNaturalist that also has (and has had for a long time now) its own AI-powered identifier (which recently underwent a major update). iNaturalist is a platform to allow citizen scientists to upload observations of any species. The distribution data is what's most used in published research and databases like GBIF, but photos can also be uploaded with any license the observer wishes and iNatualist has decent APIs and works hard to make its data accessible to anyone
- walthamstow 3y ago
  PlantNet and BirdNet are two of my favourite apps ever. They feel like a proper realisation of the power of smartphone technology (as opposed to all the other crap)
  - retro_guy 3y ago
    Check out as well Merlin Bird ID: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/
seiferteric 3y ago
Recently discovered this functionality is built into iOS. Take a picture of a plant, view it, at the bottom see the "i" in a circle. Click on it, then a banner under the image will say something like "id plant". Works pretty well, not perfect but was surprised that this is a built in feature.
- culi 3y ago
  From what I understand this is more like reverse google image searches than a species identification AI. Regardless still pretty useful and often good enough
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Come to think about it, image hashing isn't that far conceptually from vector embeddings.
kramerger 3y ago
Great app, but I hate their use of high precision GPS. Is it really that important to know the location of a plant down to meters?? If plant location is good to have, why not simply ask the user what area they are in (e.g. Berlin)??
- eth0up 3y ago
  I suspect it helps pinpoint invasive, rare, etc species and provides highly useful information for mapping distribution of species. Location is critical for understanding. It should be entirely optional for passive viewing, but at least encouraged for active contributors.
  - kramerger 3y ago
    That doesn't make sense. You don't need the exact coordinates, just what region in the country you are in.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]

103 points by retro_guy 3y ago

candiddevmike 3y ago

How does this compare to Seek?

retro_guy 3y ago
I had not much success with Seek when it comes to plants. However, its variant iNaturalist is not bad for identifying insects if you take good photos and spend some time sifting through the results suggested by the app. Flora Incognita is more like the PictureThis app with focus on the plants growing naturally in local ecosystems.
- culi 3y ago
  Seek actually just got a major overhaul a few days ago. Most other plant-identification apps heavily rely on citizen science data generated by iNaturalist anyways

acabal 3y ago

This is a really excellent app, I use it all the time in my garden. I planted native plants, and as they sprout every year it's very hard to tell them apart from weeds at first. But Flora Incognito does a great job of identifying most plants correctly even as they're just sprouting for the season.

retro_guy 3y ago
It is also worth noting that they have recently greatly improved their AI: https://floraincognita.com/blog/2023/04/18/press-release-new-ai-for-flora-incognita/ https://floraincognita.com/blog/2023/04/18/press-release-new...

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

voisin 3y ago

Really excited to try this out. I have installed Picture This in the past but they push heavily for a subscription which makes no sense for me when I only identify a few plants per year. Their business model is awful given that I suspect most people don’t have a regular need to identify plants.

neilv 3y ago

AFAICT, it's neither open source software, nor open data.

contingencies 3y ago

This appears to be a German effort. Compare the California Academy of Science effort: https://www.inaturalist.org/sites/network https://www.inaturalist.org/sites/network and https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/terms https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/terms and https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425ef4a7 https://www.gbif.org/dataset/50c9509d-22c7-4a22-a47d-8c48425... and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export

mgerdts 3y ago

I tried it out around the yard and it correctly identified a variety of native flowering plants (in and past their prime), a couple trees (one native to the region, one about 400 miles from its native range), and a few ferns. The only one I'm pretty certain it got wrong was misidentifying a ghost fern as a Japanese painted fern (I have both, they are rather easily distinguished). When I tried to suggest that the misidentified fern was a ghost fern, it was unknown to the app so I couldn't suggest it.

culi 3y ago
Did you try to suggest by the common name or the Latin name? It's highly unlikely that the app would have all the common names of all the plants. Even the common name "ghost fern" refers to a few different plants. Most commonly in the ornamental plant trade it refers to a hybrid variety called Athyrium x hybrida 'Ghost' The other major issue with ornamental plants is that they're often selected for very particular physiological characteristics. This often leads to plants that visually look very different from their wild ancestor but are still extremely closely genetically related. If you've ever had a variety of a plant with variegated leaves for example, you'll probably trip apps like these up a lot. It's simply too difficult to keep up with all the new ornamentals being bred every year. The data just doesn't exist and they're quite often weird hybrids with uncertain phylogenetics anyways
- kfrzcode 3y ago
  Interesting...seems like a generalized issue with identification type AI?
  - culi 3y ago
    Eh I wouldn't say that. You can selective breed certain plants to look extremely similar to other plants over the course of even a single year. As in, you would be able to trick a human being as well. If AI is making the same mistakes as a human, I don't really think it's a problem with the model as much as a limitation of the data I mean taxonomists themselves have often been proven incredibly wrong once phylogenetic studies have been conducted. There's simply major limitations to identifying a species by it's physical characteristics alone. Not to mention you don't get to, for example, smell, touch, taste, or watch something over time. Really it's incredible how accurate they even are already

shiggaz 3y ago

What about fungi? :(

retro_guy 3y ago
See ShroomID - https://shroom.id/ https://shroom.id/
dendrite9 3y ago
iNaturalist has been pretty good for me with fungi and slime molds. You don't even have to save the report, just start by uploading your pictures and then looking at the suggested species. If you have multiple pictures it's worth moving between them, the classifier only works on one picture at a time.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

jplona 3y ago

I've had pretty good results with Google Lens in the past, but occasional misses as well. I'll have to check if this fills the gaps.

mfkp 3y ago

I've only used PlantNet in the past. Worked well for me the few times I've used it. https://plantnet.org/en/ https://plantnet.org/en/

culi 3y ago
Whichever one you're using is probably borrowing massively from iNaturalist that also has (and has had for a long time now) its own AI-powered identifier (which recently underwent a major update). iNaturalist is a platform to allow citizen scientists to upload observations of any species. The distribution data is what's most used in published research and databases like GBIF, but photos can also be uploaded with any license the observer wishes and iNatualist has decent APIs and works hard to make its data accessible to anyone
walthamstow 3y ago
PlantNet and BirdNet are two of my favourite apps ever. They feel like a proper realisation of the power of smartphone technology (as opposed to all the other crap)
- retro_guy 3y ago
  Check out as well Merlin Bird ID: https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/ https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/

seiferteric 3y ago

Recently discovered this functionality is built into iOS. Take a picture of a plant, view it, at the bottom see the "i" in a circle. Click on it, then a banner under the image will say something like "id plant". Works pretty well, not perfect but was surprised that this is a built in feature.

culi 3y ago
From what I understand this is more like reverse google image searches than a species identification AI. Regardless still pretty useful and often good enough
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Come to think about it, image hashing isn't that far conceptually from vector embeddings.

kramerger 3y ago

Great app, but I hate their use of high precision GPS. Is it really that important to know the location of a plant down to meters?? If plant location is good to have, why not simply ask the user what area they are in (e.g. Berlin)??

eth0up 3y ago
I suspect it helps pinpoint invasive, rare, etc species and provides highly useful information for mapping distribution of species. Location is critical for understanding. It should be entirely optional for passive viewing, but at least encouraged for active contributors.
- kramerger 3y ago
  That doesn't make sense. You don't need the exact coordinates, just what region in the country you are in.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]