Semiautomated analysis of clay samples
Luciano da Fontoura Costa, Xiaoling Leng, Mark B. Sandler, Peter Smart · Review of Scientific Instruments · 1991
Important information about physical characteristics of clays can be inferred from the distribution of the orientations of straight lines in photographs of cross sections of its samples. This article describes the development of a semiautomated system for clay analysis that is based on the application of computer vision techniques. Due to the inherent complexity of these techniques, two strategies have been used in order to reduce the execution time: an effective technique, the binary Hough transform, is applied for detection of straight lines and the transputer is used to enhance the system processing power. The article includes the characterization of the clay analysis application, the description of the binary Hough transform for detection of straight line segments, the presentation of the semiautomated system, and a complete illustrative example.