Patent ID: 8352208

Claim:
An image capture device for evaluating tree production capacity, comprising: a fisheye lens; an image capture element disposed at the image-forming position of the fisheye lens; an image capture operation control portion; a processing circuit which performs data processing of image data acquired by the image capture element; and an output portion which outputs processed results of the processing circuit, characterized in that, while measuring light transmitted by a tree for the tree existing in isolation or for each of a plurality of trees existing at an interval, said processing circuit is so arranged as to perform: processing image data acquired by image capturing with the image capture device placed at a position close to the ground and apart from the main trunk by a prescribed distance so that an incident optical axis is directed upward in a vertical direction with respect to a horizontal plane to determine sky factors over a plurality of angular ranges from the image data of image portions of a plurality of angular ranges containing each of the plurality of zenith angles for measurement respectively, determining an optical path length from an incident point on a surface of the semi-spheroid by the semi-spheroid model to the image capture device and a tree crown volume, determining an amount of attenuation of light corresponding to an angular range containing each of the zenith angles from the sky factors and the optical path length corresponding the plurality of zenith angles, and determining a leaf area density from said determined amount of attenuation of light and determining a total tree leaf area from the determined leaf area density and the tree crown volume.