Patent ID: 6678396
Filing Date: 2004-01-13
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
A method for assessing a property or properties of meat including the steps of:scanning the meat using a dual energy x-ray absorption scanner to produce two images or arrays of values representative of the intensities of the x-rays at two energy levels, and processing the images or arrays of values using at least one equation from the group of: effective atomic number=A*((Hâˆ’L)Ã·L)+B*H+C effective atomic number=A*((Hâˆ’L)Ã·H)+B*H+C effective atomic number=A*((Hâˆ’L)Ã·(H+L))+B*H+C effective atomic number=A*((Hâˆ’L)Ã·L)+B*L+C effective atomic number=A*((Hâˆ’L)Ã·H)+B*L+C effective atomic number=A*((Hâˆ’L)Ã·(H+L))+B*L+C data point CL%=100âˆ’(KA*(Hâˆ’L)Ã·L+KB*H+KC) corrected CL%=CL%+(KCA*(MCYâˆ’CY)+KCB) meat tenderness=CRL*RI+CGL*GI+CBL*BI+C meat tenderness=CBL*BI+Câ€²meat tenderness=CRL*RSD+CGL*GSD+CBL*BSD+C to determine at least one property of the scanned meat, whereH represents an array of value or image of the x-rays at a first energy level, L represents an array of values or image of the x-rays at a second energy level, A, B. C, Câ€², KA, KB, KC, KCA, KCB, CRL, CGL, CBL are constants, CL % is the chemical lean percentage of the meat, MCY is the mass centroid, CY is the y centroid, RI is the average red intensity calculated from a filtered gray-scale red array, GI is the average green intensity calculated from a filtered gray-scale green array, BI is the average blue intensity calculated from a filtered gray-scale blue array RSD is the standard deviation of a binary edge structure array of a red component, GSD is the standard deviation of a binary edge structure array of a green component, and BSD is the standard deviation of a binary edge structure array of a blue component.