An automatic system for dirt in pulp inspection using hierarchical image segmentation

An automatic visual inspection system designed for dirt inspection in the pulp and paper industry is presented. A new hierarchical region oriented segmentation algorithm is introduced. The algorithm is tuned according to the singular characteristics of the pulp samples. A criterion based on the maximisation of the local contrast is defined in order to perform a defect region segmentation of the pulp and paper images. Some optimisations are introduced to avoid an excessive computational load.