# Data-driven Crop Growth Simulation on Time-varying Generated Images using Multi-conditional Generative Adversarial Networks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.03443 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03443/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [Large Scale GAN Training for High Fidelity Natural Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.11096/) (2018)
- [Improved Training of Wasserstein GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.00028/) (2017)
- [Conditional Generative Adversarial Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.1784/) (2014)
- [Improved Regularization of Convolutional Neural Networks with Cutout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04552/) (2017)
- [Training Generative Adversarial Networks with Limited Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06676/) (2020)
- [Wasserstein GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.07875/) (2017)
- [Conditional Image Synthesis With Auxiliary Classifier GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.09585/) (2016)
- [A Learned Representation For Artistic Style](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07629/) (2016)
- [Modulating early visual processing by language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.00683/) (2017)
- [Collapse by Conditioning: Training Class-conditional GANs with Limited Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06578/) (2022)
- [GrowliFlower: An image time series dataset for GROWth analysis of cauLIFLOWER](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00294/) (2022)
- [Temporal Prediction and Evaluation of Brassica Growth in the Field using Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.07789/) (2021)
- [Unsupervised Image Translation using Adversarial Networks for Improved Plant Disease Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.11915/) (2019)
- [Behind the leaves -- Estimation of occluded grapevine berries with conditional generative adversarial networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.10325/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Predictive Modeling, Pattern Recognition, and Spatiotemporal Representations of Plant Growth in Simulated and Controlled Environments: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10538/) (2024)
- [ST-LoRA: Single Trajectory LoRA Ensemble for Uncertainty Aware Agricultural Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.01530/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Image-based crop growth modeling can substantially contribute to precision agriculture by revealing spatial crop development over time, which allows an early and location-specific estimation of relevant future plant traits, such as leaf area or biomass. A prerequisite for realistic and sharp crop image generation is the integration of multiple growth-influencing conditions in a model, such as an image of an initial growth stage, the associated growth time, and further information about the field treatment. We present a two-stage framework consisting first of an image prediction model and second of a growth estimation model, which both are independently trained. The image prediction model is a conditional Wasserstein generative adversarial network (CWGAN). In the generator of this model, conditional batch normalization (CBN) is used to integrate different conditions along with the input image. This allows the model to generate time-varying artificial images dependent on multiple influencing factors of different kinds. These images are used by the second part of the framework for plant phenotyping by deriving plant-specific traits and comparing them with those of non-artificial (real) reference images. For various crop datasets, the framework allows realistic, sharp image predictions with a slight loss of quality from short-term to long-term predictions. Simulations of varying growth-influencing conditions performed with the trained framework provide valuable insights into how such factors relate to crop appearances, which is particularly useful in complex, less explored crop mixture systems. Further results show that adding process-based simulated biomass as a condition increases the accuracy of the derived phenotypic traits from the predicted images. This demonstrates the potential of our framework to serve as an interface between an image- and process-based crop growth model.