Batch Analysis of Digital Images to Evaluate Turfgrass Characteristics

TLDR

Digital image analysis techniques have been developed to assess turfgrass percent green cover and average color, but manual analysis becomes cumbersome when many plots or frequent images are involved. This study aimed to create a user‑friendly macro that enables automated batch analysis of an unlimited number of digital images. The macro, named “Turf Analysis,” was written for SigmaScan Pro, requires less than one minute of manual execution, and automatically performs percent cover and/or color analysis on any number of images, saving results to a spreadsheet. The macro is freely available for download.

Abstract

Techniques using digital image analysis have been recently developed to evaluate turfgrass stands for percent green cover and average color. Manually analyzing digital images may become cumbersome and tedious if turf field trials contain many plots or if images are collected at frequent intervals for analysis. The objective of the following work was to develop a user‐friendly macro capable of automated batch analysis of an unlimited number of digital images. A macro named “Turf Analysis” was written to batch analyze images using SigmaScan Pro software. The macro, which requires less than 1 min of manual execution, performs percent cover and/or color analysis on an unlimited number of images and automatically saves the results into a spreadsheet file. The macro is freely available to download.