ITR: An Electronic Field Guide: Plant Exploration and Discovery in the 21st Century

该项目正在开发第一代电子野外指南：允许实地分类学家获取有关植物物种的关键比较信息的计算设备。目前，当植物学家在野外收集标本并想要证实一个新物种的存在时，他们必须从博物馆和草药库借来实物样本，比如史密森类型的标本收藏。这一过程极其耗时且效率低下。电子实地指南将加快这一过程并使其自动化。该系统的核心将是一个典型的标本数字收藏。这将包括95,000个植物型标本的数字图像，这些标本是用于识别新物种的最终参考标本。这些核心数据将与其他标本和活植物的照片相联系。研究人员还将开发用于视觉植物识别的算法。这些将是结合传统文本搜索在数字集合中搜索图像的中心。最后，该项目将致力于创建一套具有新颖用户界面的移动和可穿戴原型，以便该领域的植物学家可以拍摄植物并使用这些照片和文字访问系统。一个完整的系统将使野外植物学家能够轻而易举地掌握目前仅保存在远离标本发现地点的特殊收藏中的信息。它还将提供基于内容的检索，远远超出目前导航这些知识的方法。这些新技术将极大地加速发现和鉴定世界上剩余的未描述的植物。

This project is developing the first generation of electronic field guides: computing devices that allow a taxonomist in the field access to critical comparative information on plant species. Currently, when botanists in the field collect specimens and want to verify the existence of a new species, they must borrow physical samples from museums and herbaria, such as the Smithsonian type specimen collection. This process is extremely time-consuming and inefficient. The electronic field guide will speed and automate this process. At the core of the system will be a type specimen digital collection. This will include digital images of 95,000 botanical type specimens, the definitive reference specimens used to identify new species. This core data will be linked to photos both of additional specimens and of live plants. The investigators will also develop algorithms for visual plant recognition. These will be central to searching images in the digital collection, in conjunction with conventional text search. Finally, this project will work toward the creation of a set of mobile and wearable prototypes with novel user interfaces so that botanists in the field can photograph plants and access the system with these photos and text. A completed system will allow field botanists to have at their fingertips information that is currently housed only in special collections far from where the specimens are discovered. It will also provide content-based retrieval that goes well beyond current methods for navigating this knowledge. These new technologies will greatly accelerate the discovery and identification of the remaining undescribed plants of the world.