Wood species identification using improved active shape model

In this paper, we propose a robust wood species identification scheme by using color wood surface images. First, a novel wood image acquirement system is devised, and the wood color image is converted into a V₁V₂I color-base image. Second, the corresponding grey histograms for V₁ and V₂ are established. Third, an improved active shape model is used to fulfill the curve deformation of the histogram curve of the standard specimen. This active shape model will then converge to the histogram curve of the test specimen. Finally, wood recognition is performed by comparing the initial and final active shape models with the histogram curve of the test specimen. We have experimentally proved that this scheme improves the mean recognition accuracy to approximately 90% for 5 wood species and that it can also be applied to the Gaussian noisy images. Moreover, the recognition accuracy can be further improved by combining this scheme with the texture feature recognition.