Figure 2 .

Arabidopsis seed area and shape measured by automatic image processing. (A) A sample of a typical image of a field of Arabidopsis seeds acquired with a flatbed photo scanner. Scale bar = 5 mm. (Inset) An expansion of the field showing a cluster of three seeds. A custom algorithm determines the boundary, or contour (black line), of all objects in the image that can be separated (segmented) from the background and rejects any not having the morphological properties of a single seed such as the two touching seeds shown, or a piece of debris. The white arrows indicate the major and minor axes of a successfully segmented individual seed. Scale bar = 0.5 mm. (B−D), Frequency distribution of seed area in two independent generations of the Cvi × Ler RIL population (B, C) and a Cvi × Ler NIL population (D). The 95% confidence interval of the parental means lies within the specified bins.