Development of a Computer Vision Technology for the Forest Products Manufacturing Industry

The goal of this research is to create an automated processing/grading system for hardwood lumber that will be of use to the forest products industry. The objective of creating a full scale machine vision prototype for inspecting hardwood lumber will become a reality in calendar year 1992. Space for the full scale prototype has been created at the Brooks Forest Products Center. The lumber handling component of this system has been designed, built, and delivered to Virginia Tech. The computer systems for controlling the lumber handling system and collecting/analyzing image data has arrived. The color imaging systems have been tentatively designed and tested. What remains is to integrate all the various components together and to use the resulting system to create a commercially useful technology for solving a number of hardwood forest products manufacturing problems.