An Evaluation of Image Processing Methods Applied To Marble Quality Classification

Assist. Prof. Dr. Ozgur AKKOYUN Mining Engineering Department, Dicle University Diyarbakir, TURKEY oakkoyun@gmail.com

Abstract-Image processing is an interesting research area that has progressed in correspondence with improvements in computer related technologies. In the last decades, it has quickly improved and widely spread. In this study, image processing methods are discussed, a new computer program that can use these methods is introduced, and the application of these methods to marble quality classification is evaluated. Key words: Image processing, Quality classification, Marble quality selection, Computer program

I.

INTRODUCTION

Image processing, in general, is the realization of almost all of the performances of the human visual system by computers. These performances include color or tone detection, object and edge detection, image segmentation and rendering, and image classification and identification. At first glance, the significance of these abilities may not be understood because we, as human beings, possess them from birth. However, their application as numerical methods using computers is very difficult because the human visual system is one of the most sophisticated systems ever known [1]. Image processing methods involve many techniques such as the acquisition, digitization, segmentation, and enhancement, classification, recording, and re-calling of images using different numerical sub-methods. In some industrial systems, it is necessary to get samples or to measure remotely in order to control and evaluate the system without stopping it. Initially, these particular industries were interested in image processing methods, which have now found application areas in almost every industry. Image processing methods are used in biology and medical science for the evaluation of biomedical images, in engineering for processing electron microscope and spectrometer images, and in aeronautics and space science for the evaluation of satellite photos and weather forecasting. In addition, there are different successful image processing related applications in defense and security systems and they are also used for product and process control, and in final product classification and control in several industries. One of these application areas involves earth science and the mining industry. Image processing techniques are used in this industry for controlling the environmental effects of mines [2]; for determining some features of rock masses [3]; in the identification of minerals and metal content estimation [4], [5]; for determining the size distribution of aggregates [6], [7]; for remotely controlling crushing and grinding circuits [8]; for the prediction of particle size distribution in

bench blasting [9], [10], [11]; and for froth size control in flotation [12], [13], [14] . There have also been several image processing related studies in the natural stone industry. Some of these have been about the color identification of marble products [15] and most have discussed the classification of the final products or the texture recognition of pre-products of natural stones [16], [17], [18], [19]. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the usability of image processing methods for marble product quality classification. Although there have been several studies on this subject, these have found that it was not as easy as presumed. Despite the literature, there have been almost zero applications on the industrial scale because of various obstacles. This study aims to demonstrate the applicability of image processing methods to marble quality classification on the industrial scale. II. IMAGE PROCESSING APPLICATIONS IN MARBLE QUALITY CLASSIFICATION

A. Marble Production System The marble production system begins in a quarry with the quarrying of raw natural blocks using different tools and methods. After cutting blocks from an in-situ rock mass, these are shaped to certain sizes and then sent to processing plants. In these plants, different marble products are produced by using special techniques such as cutting, resizing, filling, calibration, and polishing. In these processing plants, regardless of the product type, there is a special step called the quality control table or selection table at the end of the process line. In this last step, the marble products produced on that line are subjected to evaluation and classification in terms of color and texture quality, dimensions, polishing quality, and other properties by workers. At this stage, two different classification approaches are considered. In one of them, products are classified into different economic classes depending on quality features such as color, texture, filling, polishing, and dimensions, where these classes refer to their target markets and selling prices. This selection approach is widely used in marble processing plants. On the other hand, there is another classification type called selection of the stone or just selection in the marble industry. Regardless of the quality features, the classification in terms of the color and pattern of the marble

is called selection. This type is totally different from the first approach, and instead of the quality features used in the first approach, this classification is based on the origin of the marble product. As is known, as a result of different geological conditions, natural stones, even within the same mineral deposit, may show different color pattern features. A single color and texture for natural stone, without any changes throughout the marble deposit, even at the same quarry, are not very common. On the other hand, customersespecially for large volume orderswant marble products with the same color and texture. Therefore, selection is necessary in order to meet this kind of demand. Having the same color for the marble products used for a particular area is very important aesthetically to customers. This means that two marbles in the same selection class should have the same color, tone, and texture. Therefore, there are two different quality classifications in marble processing plants. These two different classifications should be taken into consideration when image processing-related marble classification is designed and evaluated. B. Image Processing An image is defined as a kind of two-dimensional instantaneous record of a real object. Image processing is any form of signal processing for which the input is an image. In other words, image processing is an attempt to imitate the operations of the human visual system. In order to obtain, save, and process an image, it should be defined with at least two dimensions and color data. This process is called digitizing. A digital image, a [m, n], described in a 2D discrete space is derived from an analog image, a(x, y), in a 2D space. The 2D continuous image, a(x, y), is divided into N rows and M columns. The intersection of a row and a column is called a pixel. The value assigned to the integer coordinates, [m, n], with {m=0, 1, 2, ..., M-1} and {n=0, 1,

2,..., N-1} is a [m, n]. The effect of digitization is shown in Fig. 1. For every pixel, m, n, and color values are needed. If the image will be saved in a color form, then three different color values should be considered for every pixel, while for grayscale images one color value is enough. Because computers detect images as matrices containing a digital mass of data, as given in Fig. 1, every process should be realized using these matrices. In this case, it can be said that image processing is a kind of mathematical operation applied to data containing the digital values of digitized images. One of these mathematical operations is a grayscale technique that aims to convert color images into a grayscale form to shrink the amount of digitized data. This is because color images need at least three different color values, ranging between 1 and 1.6 106, with two coordinate values, while grayscale images need only one color value, ranging between 1 and 255, with one coordinate value. There are different formulas that are used to convert color images into grayscale images in the literature. The most common are given in eq. 1 and eq. 2. Y=0.30*R+0.59*G+0.11*B (1)

Y=0.299*R+0.587*G+0.114*B

(2)

where Y is the grayscale value, and R, G, and B are the red, green, and blue values of the image, respectively. In some cases, an exact color value in an input image is marked as an object or threshold level and all of the pixels are re-valued as 1 or 0 according to whether or not their value is bigger than the threshold level. In this case, the color data contain only 0 or 1 value, which means all of the pixels are either black or white. This process is called thresholding, and is commonly used in image processing.

Figure 1. The 2D image and part of the digitizing data.

Another method that has been proposed for the analysis of this numerical data is the color histogram method. By this method, the distribution of the color values can be followed and analyzed easily. By just looking at a color histogram, it is possible to determine that an image has light, dark, or fuzzy contents. Just as a narrow distribution of the color values causes fuzziness, a wide distribution results in a clear image because it contains contrast colors, which make the images more discernible. The next step of the histogram method is contrast stretching. This method involves changing the upper and lower limits of the current image to grayscale limits (0-255). In this way, the current histogram is stretched by using a simple mathematical operation and the image becomes much more discernible (see Fig. 2). For example, an input image with color values of 26-230 can be stretched to one with values of 0-255 by using this method, which makes the image much more discernible. In order to apply this operation, the mathematical equation given in eq. 3 can be used.

Y2 is the biggest color value of the output image (255) X is the color value of the pixel (existence) Y is the new color value of the pixel (new) Another image processing method is histogram equalization. This method is suitable for images having nonuniform color value distributions. If it is used for the whole image, it is called global histogram equalization, whereas if it is used for only part of the image, it is called local histogram equalization. For images having narrow color histograms, this method allows images to be made much clearer and more discernible. In the first step of this method, the cumulative histogram of the input image is calculated and then normalized by multiplying by the biggest expected color value of the output image and dividing the results by the total number of pixels. Finally, the output image is created (see Fig. 3). There are several other methods used in image processing applications that are not mentioned here [20]. According to the aim of any study, it is possible to propose a new method, because almost all of the methods include mathematical operations that are applied to the data to obtain digitized images. For this reason, there is no static rule or sequence that describes the procedures and applications of image processing methods. The main idea should be to find the best method to obtain the expected results from the image processing study.

where; X1 is the smallest color value of the input image X2 is the biggest color value of the input image Y1 is the smallest color value of the output image (0)

(a)

(b)

Figure 2. Before (a) and after (b) the contrast stretching application of the marble image

(a)

(b)

Figure 3. Before (a) and after (b) the histogram equalization application to the marble image.

(a)

(b) Figure 4. Samples from the three selections of the studied marble.

(c)

C. New Computer Program As a part of this study, a new computer program was developed to apply and evaluate image processing methods. This program can open different image file formats in the desired size, can convert color pictures into grayscale, and can read the color value of every pixel and save them in the computer as data files. Different color spaces (e.g., RGB, HSL, HSI, XYZ, and CMY) can be used and conversations between color spaces can be made. By using this program, several image analysis effects such as darkening, lightening, cropping, reduction, zoom, resizing, and the salt and pepper effect can be applied to the images, along with several methods such as histogram calculation, thresholding, stretching, and equalization, and the results can be obtained and saved as data files. Several mathematical and statistical methods such as calculating the biggest, smallest, mode, mean, median, variance, and coefficient of variation can be applied to these data files, which contain the color values of the images. In addition, the program records the scanning and progressing time values for every image because these values are very important for industrial scale applications. As was mentioned in the previous sections, image processing applications have been considered for marble quality classification in marble plants. Thus, the total processing and classification time of such an application should be less than or at least the same as the processing time of marble processing lines in order to allow synchronization with the lines and nonstop processing. Therefore, achieving marble classification with image processing methods is important but doing so in a restricted time is crucial. D. Case studies The computer program was tested by using a specific type of marble coming from Diyarbakir basin (Turkey), which is one of the biggest natural stone centers of Turkey. The marble used as a sample is the most common marble product that is quarried, processed in Diyarbakir, and sold to international markets. There are three types of selection classes for this marble type, apart from its economic classification (Fig. 4). These marble classes refer to different color and texture configurations. Although these color-texture differences come from different areas of a single quarry, it is common to observe these three color-texture patterns in the same marble

block, which means we should work hard to separate these different marble tiles having different colors at the end of the tile line in the marble processing plant. During the case study, 20 marble tiles were obtained from these three different selection types and their photos were taken using a digital camera. After that, these photos were processed using the computer program. In this process, different color spaces, picture sizes, and pixel contents were tried and different image processing methods such as grayscale conversion, color histogram analysis, thresholding, histogram stretching, histogram equalization, mirror effect, and color filters were applied. In addition, the numerical data obtained from the digitized photos were saved in different data formats and different statistical calculations were applied to these data in order to find a way to classify these three different marbles. III. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

After an evaluation of the previous studies, including the fundamental mathematical ideas for image processing, a computer program was designed and tested using samples obtained from a marble plant. In addition, the preliminary results of this study were introduced to experts such as control engineers in the plants and academicians whose research area is marble production. The results from all of these studies are as follows: i. Image processing methods should be evaluated using two different sub-methods dealing with 2D and 3D images. The methods and processes for these two types of images are extremely different. ii. The studies in the literature deal with a wide range of applications, including object recognition, the reading on car license plates, movement detection, and size estimation from 2D images. However, marble quality classification by image analysis is totally different, basically involving comparing marble images to predefined marble images saved in a database to determine the type of marble. Therefore, after digitizing the images, statistical and mathematical operations are also needed. iii. Color space transformation algorithms are useless for this process. This study proved that using color spaces and converting input image values into different color spaces before the calculations for marble classification are not suitable. They may be useful for the identification of something in the current image or edge

iv.

v.

vi.

vii.

detection. But basically, space conversion algorithms involve transforming the color values of the image from one type to another by increasing or decreasing the color values of every pixel. Whereas, in marble quality classification, there are three different marble types (or images), and when we apply color space transformation to these three images, their color values all transform together, which keeps their initial numerical properties the same and does not help to separate them. The restrictions coming from plant conditions should be considered, because this program and method will be used in plants. Yet, unfortunately this is not mentioned in the literature. For example, it is possible to design a program that classifies marbles using image analysis, but if it requires 15 minutes for processing, then it becomes useless. The program is designed to work at the end of the tile line in a marble processing plant. The processing speed for tile lines is 0.5-3 m/min, which means that there is only 1 or 2 minutes to obtain, digitize process, compare with the database, classify, and finalize the marble image data. For this study and program, about 2.1 minutes were required, which will improve. This study found that instead of using all of the pixels in an image, reducing the amount of data produced better results. In order to obtain successful quality classification using an image analysis method at the end of a line in a plant, the quarrying methods and block selection methods should be re-considered and reorganized. Without this, most of the marble blocks and most of the products produced from them will have different colors and textures, which will make classification too difficult. If the blocks have the same colors, the marble products will also have the same colors. Then, the classification process will be both easy and successful. Another important result of the case study is that marble quality classification is conventionally performed by expert workers in the plants. After the quality classification step, there is a packaging process that is also performed by these workers. Although the main advantage of using image analysis for marble quality selection is the elimination of these workers, it seems that after successful image analysis we still need workers, at least for packaging. The best approach would be to design an integrated system that includes both quality classification using image analysis and product packaging using hardware parts. Finally, the program can classify marble products with different geological origins or of different marble types because the images of different marble types have pixels with sufficiently different color values. However, because the selection classes of the same marble types have almost the same color values, this part of the study was not successful. The study is ongoing and the final results and the program will be shared with the industry in the future.

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