---
title: Can Chopping Fruit Help Computers Learn?
date: 2023-10-11T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/can-chopping-fruit-help-computers-learn"
section: Articles
---
# Can Chopping Fruit Help Computers Learn?

*October 11, 2023* — by [Maria Herd M.A. ’19](/author/maria-herd)


> UMD Researchers Address Object Recognition Problem in Machine Learning

*AI foodrecognition 1920x1080 istock — A new project from UMD computer science researchers aims to teach AI systems how to recognize objects as they transform into different shapes, such as fruits being sliced.*

When is an apple not an apple? If you’re a computer, the answer is when it’s been cut in half.

While significant advancements have been made in computer vision the past few years, teaching a computer to identify objects as they change shape remains elusive in the field, particularly with artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Now, computer science researchers at the University of Maryland are tackling the problem using objects that we alter everyday—fruits and vegetables.

Their product is [Chop & Learn,](https://chopnlearn.github.io/) a dataset that teaches machine learning systems to recognize produce in various forms—even as its being peeled, sliced or chopped into pieces.

[The project](https://obj.umiacs.umd.edu/iccv-paper/2309.14339.pdf)was presented earlier this month at the 2023 International Conference on Computer Vision in Paris.

“You and I can visualize how a sliced apple or orange would look compared to a whole fruit, but machine learning models require lots of data to learn how to interpret that,” said [Nirat Saini,](https://www.cs.umd.edu/~nirat/)a fifth-year computer science doctoral student and lead author of the paper. “We needed to come up with a method to help the computer imagine unseen scenarios the same way that humans do.”



*diagram of how system works, showing camera, fruits, and cut up fruits — Courtesy of Chop & Learn team*




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Artificial Intelligence](https://today.umd.edu/topic/artificial-intelligence), [Computer Science](https://today.umd.edu/topic/computer-science), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences), [University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies](https://today.umd.edu/topic/university-of-maryland-institute-for-advanced-computer-studies)