Recognition of south indian medicinal plants using computer vision techniques

Abstract

Complementary, Alternative health care and Medical practices (CAMs) have been growingly proven safe and effective and have become an accepted mainstream health care practice today. They may be grouped into domains like Alternative medical system, Mind-body interventions, Biological based treatments manipulating methods and Energy therapies. Of them, alternative medical system has become to stay popular because of its holistic nature. Ayurveda, originated in India more than 5000 years ago, is a chief alternative medical therapy. It provides unique cure per individuals and it has been followed by 80 % of people in India. In the system of medicine called Ayurveda, identification of medicinal plants has been considered as an important activity in the preparation of herbal medicines. Due to the increased adverse effects of allopathy therapy, Ayurveda medicines have become alternate for it. Medicinal plants can be used to treat both common and special human ailments. As a result, digital preservation of medicinal plant information as well as dissemination is required. Hence, an advance technology that mimics the expert s intelligence is needed for automatic identification and classification of medicinal plants. newline