Image Information Contribution Evaluation for Plant Diseases Classification via Inter-Class Similarity

Combineingplant diseases identification and deep learning algorithm can achieve cost-effective prevention effect, and has been widely used. However, the current field of intelligent plant diseases identification still faces the problems of insufficient data and inaccurate classification. Aiming to resolve these problems, the present research proposes an image information contribution evaluation method based on the analysis of inter-class similarity. Combining this method with the active learning image selection strategy can provide guidance for the collection and annotation of intelligent identification datasets of plant diseases, so as to improve the recognition effect and reduce the cost. The method proposed includes two modules: the inter-classes similarity evaluation module and the image information contribution evaluation module. The images located on the decision boundary between high similarity classes will be analysis as high information contribution images, they will provide more information for plant diseases classification. In order to verify the effectiveness of this method, experiments were carried on the fine-grained classification dataset of tomato diseases. Experimental results confirm the superiority of this method compared with others. This research is in the field of plant disease classification. For the detection and segmentation, further research is advisable.