Plant‑Imager Service Architecture Overview

The Plant‑Imager service stack is split into several Docker containers that work together to provide a complete workflow:

Service	Purpose	Key Env Vars	Communication
ssl_cert	Copies SSL certificates into a shared volume (nginx_cert).	SERVER_HOST, CONTROLLER_HOST, etc. (used by nginx)	Provides certificates to NGINX via a shared Docker volume.
nginx	Reverse proxy that exposes public ports (80/443) and forwards requests to the internal services.	SERVER_HOST, CONTROLLER_HOST, CONTROLLER_PORT, CONTROLLER_PREFIX, PLANTDB_HOST, PLANTDB_PORT, PLANTDB_PREFIX, P3DX_HOST, P3DX_PORT, P3DX_PREFIX, P3DV_HOST, P3DV_PORT, P3DV_PREFIX	Routes traffic from the host to the appropriate internal container using the plantimager-net.
plantdb	REST API for the Plant Database (data storage, queries, etc.).	PLANTDB_API_PREFIX, PLANTDB_API_SSL	Exposed via uWSGI on ${PLANTDB_PORT}; NGINX proxies /plantdb requests to this container.
webui	WebUI controller for plant scanning.	ALLOW_PRIVATE_IP, CERT_PATH, PLANTDB_HOST, PLANTDB_PREFIX, WEBUI_PROXY, WEBUI_PREFIX	Exposes itself on ${CONTROLLER_PORT}; NGINX proxies /webui.
p3dv	Plant 3D Vision – WebTerm for data processing (reconstruction and quantifications).	PLANTDB_API, WEBTERM_PROXY, WEBTERM_PREFIX	Runs Gunicorn/WSGI on ${P3DV_PORT}; NGINX proxies /p3dv.
p3dx	Plant 3D Explorer – JS/REACT interactive 3D viewer.	API_URL, BASENAME	Exposes a static web app on ${P3DX_PORT}; NGINX proxies /p3dx.

Note
The ssl_cert container is only needed if you use a self‑signed certificate. In production you may want to use Let's Encrypt certificates using a certbot and point nginx at a persistent cert volume and disable this service.

How the Components Talk to Each Other

1. Docker Network (plantimager-net) – All services are attached to the same internal Docker bridge.
   Containers resolve each other by name (plantdb, p3dx, p3dv, webui).

2. NGINX Reverse Proxy – Acts as the single entry point for external clients.
   Ports 80 and 443 are mapped to the host.
   Based on URL prefixes (/webui, /plantdb, /p3dx, /p3dv) NGINX forwards traffic to the respective containers.*

3. uWSGI / Gunicorn – Both plantdb and webui expose a WSGI application.
   uWSGI (in plantdband webui) and Gunicorn (in p3dv) listen on the container’s internal port and are reached by NGINX.

4. Health‑check URLs – Each container runs a simple curl check ( /health or the root URL) to confirm the service are ready