Image processing determines the quality of meat within a pig cadaver by calculation of lean meat content between fixed points

摘要

The invention relates to a method which, using optical image processing, ensures an automatic quality assessment of animal half-carcasses, in particular, of slaughtered pigs, whereby, compared to prior art methods, a higher reproducible estimation accuracy, which can not be significantly influenced by errors made during the cleaving process of the slaughtered animal, is attained by carrying out image acquisition in a manner that is not absolutely perpendicular in relation to the cleaving plane. To this end, the invention provides that an optical recorded image of the animal half-carcass is photogrammetrically evaluated in the cleaving plane, in the area of the ham-loin region. The vertebral column (3), the hinge bone (2), the thinnest fat thickness on the musculus gluteus medium (MGM) (16), and the contours of the fat back (6; 12) in the selected region are used as distinctive reference points. The portion of lean meat which leads to the assessment of quality is calculated by adding the partial lengths in the region of the meat and of the fat layer which are set in proportion to one another and which are perpendicular to the straight progression of the back marrow channel while taking into account a base constant as well as constants for each term, which are established from regression calculations.