Soft Sensor Design Using Image Analysis and its Industrial Applications Part 1. Estimation and Monitoring of Product Appearance

In this work, soft sensor based on image anlaysis is proposed for quantitatively estimating the visual appearance of manufactured products and is applied to quality monitoring. The methodology consists of three steps; (1) textural feature extraction from product images using wavelet transform, (2) numerical estimation of the product appearance through projection of the textural features on subspace, and (3) use of latent variables of textural features (i.e., numerical estimates of product appearance). The focus of this approach is on the consistent and quantitative estimation of continuous variations in visual appearance rather than on classification into discrete classes. This approach is illustrated through the application to the estimation and monitoring of the appearance of engineered stone countertops.