Assessing the visual aspect of rotating virtual rose bushes by a labeled sorting task

• Two panels succeeded in sorting and describing 40 rotating virtual rose bush videos.
• Architectural variations within a rose bush crop could generate visual differences.
• From rotation, subjects integrated plant facet variations in their verbatim.

Aesthetics is one of the major parameters for consumers when buying a rose bush. Therefore, managing this quality is important for agronomists. Tools are needed to assess visual characteristics and to find links with architectural plant parameters. Sensory analyses were developed using real plants and photographs as stimuli. With technology and modeling improvements, using virtual plants could presents numerous advantages. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using rotating virtual rose bush videos as stimuli for a labeled sorting task. The virtual rose bush reflected a natural within-crop variability of one cultivar based on bud breaks location and axes length. Two panels of subjects closely linked to the horticulture sector sorted and described 40 rotating virtual rose bush videos. Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) results for both panels were similar and allowed us to highlight five groups of virtual rose bushes with their specific sensory characteristics and their own most representative products using a combination of the paragons and the most typical products. This approach revealed that subjects detected high visual differences between products, and that by using rotation, they were able to integrate 3D properties about variations around plant facets. Finally, a labeled sorting task is a powerful method for preliminary exploration of the visual aspect of virtual plants.