Leaf Map

Interactive map of leaf shapes

I used machine learning techniques to organize tree species according to their leaf shape. The idea was to create a more intuitive and friendly way to recognize plant species.

Leaf features

Using the [Shape Context Algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_context) I generated a "fingerprint" vector representing each leaf, which is then used to asses the similarity of shapes. Finally the dimension of this vector is reduced to 2D using PCA and [t-SNE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-distributed_stochastic_neighbor_embedding), and the leaves are displayed in an interactive interface I created using D3.js.

The project was inspired by the [IDEO Font Map](https://www.designboom.com/design/ideo-font-map-interview-typography-04-21-2017/), all data and images were taken from the [Leaf Snap dataset](https://leafsnap.com/dataset/).

Tools Used