Image Processing of Artificial Targets for Automatic Evaluation of Spray Quality

A fully automatic methodology based on image processing is proposed to evaluate the quality of spray application sampled by water-sensitive papers (WSP). The methods proposed permit a computation of the fraction of spray coverage, an evaluation of the homogeneity of the spray spatial spread at various scales and directions, and extraction of stain and droplet size range and distribution. This allows the number of droplets per unit area and the standard droplet size spectra factors to be computed. The methods were tested with a number of test samples scanned at different resolutions, proving to be effective in situations where there is high spray coverage in the WSP, thus with considerable overlap between stains. The most suitable scanning resolution was found to be 600 dpi. The results obtained by the image processing methods were successfully compared with a manual (visual) counting of stains in a test sample.

[1]  Roy Bateman,et al.  Simple, standardized methods for recording droplet measurements and estimation of deposits from controlled droplet applications , 1993 .

[2]  Rafael C. González,et al.  Local Determination of a Moving Contrast Edge , 1985, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[3]  K. A. Huntington,et al.  The use of a water sensitive dye for the detection and assessment of small spray droplets , 1970 .

[4]  Manuel A. Aguilar,et al.  ATOMIZATION CHARACTERISTICS OF HYDRAULIC NOZZLES USING FRACTAL GEOMETRY , 2006 .

[5]  G. Doruchowski,et al.  Method of evaluation of spray deposit and coverage on artificial targets , 2002 .

[6]  Dimiter Prodanov,et al.  Automatic morphometry of synaptic boutons of cultured cells using granulometric analysis of digital images , 2006, Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

[7]  D. Giles,et al.  Quality Control Verification and Mapping for Chemical Application , 2003, Precision Agriculture.

[8]  B. Panneton.  IMAGE ANALYSIS OF WATER–SENSITIVE CARDS FOR SPRAY COVERAGE EXPERIMENTS , 2002 .

[9]  Edward R. Dougherty,et al.  Representation of Linear Granulometric Moments for Deterministic and Random Binary Euclidean Images , 1995, J. Vis. Commun. Image Represent..

[10]  R. D. Fox,et al.  EVALUATION OF SPRAY QUALITY BY OILAND WATER-SENSITIVE PAPERS , 1999 .

[11]  Heping Zhu,et al.  Fluorescent Intensity of Dye Solutions under Different pH Conditions , 2005 .

[12]  D. K. Giles,et al.  DIGITAL DEVICE AND TECHNIQUE FOR SENSING DISTRIBUTION OF SPRAY DEPOSITION , 2005 .

[13]  R. E. Wolf.  Assessing the Ability of Dropletscan to Analyze Spray Droplets from a Ground Operated Sprayer , 2003 .

[14]  R. C. Derksen,et al.  Visual and Image System Measurement of Spray Deposits Using Water-Sensitive Paper , 2003 .