Patent ID: 7547247
Filing Date: 2009-06-16
Classification: A22B,G01N

Abstract:
1. A method of determining in a non-invasive manner a trade classification, a trade value, a market value and a quality of a body of a slaughtered animal on a basis of optical image processing, comprising the steps of performing dissection trials from a sufficient number of pig carcasses, in which at first their weight is determined after killing and cooling; creating a digital image in a loin and ham region from a split side of a half carcass as an image region ( 1 ) using an imaging method; subjecting the image to an image analysis and contour progressions of a meat tissue and detecting fat tissue and bones; using contour progressions, measuring individual lengths, distances averaged over contour regions and areas, and also obtaining brightness and/or color values as characteristic parameters and measured values; within following dissection trials determining weight percentages of all cuts as individual cuts, comprising a weight of a fillet, a muscle meat of shoulder, loins boneless, ham and belly; a weight of these cuts and a weight of remaining cuts and storing them individually; allocating these characteristic parameters and measured values to a weight of a carcasses and to weights of yields of individual parts from which specific relational data are calculated as basic data; in an ongoing slaughtering operation determining a weight of pig carcasses after killing and cooling; creating a digital image of the image region ( 1 ) from the split side of the carcass half in a ham and loin region of the pig by using an optical sensor and subjecting the digital image to image analysis; determining in the image region ( 1 ) inside the ham and loin region lengths angles, areas, brightness and/or color information with all details as characteristic parameters and measured values; using a total weight of the carcass and data from results of the previously preformed dissection trials with respect to fluctuating yields of individual cuts of non-homogenous bodies of slaughtered animals; in an active ongoing slaughtering operation correlating the basic data, obtained with dissection trials of a sufficient number of carcasses, of weight percentages from yields of individual cuts, together with characteristic parameters and measured values, including a fat area ( 3 ) and meat areas ( 4 ), meat measurements (F) and fat measurements (S), part lengths in a muscle meat and fat, a middle fat layer over a MGM ( 5 ) in a region of an area between an extension of a perpendicular ( 10 ); placing the perpendicular ( 10 ) on a straight line ( 9 ) at a level of a front (cranial) end ( 11 ) of the MGM ( 5 ) to an upper (dorsal) edge of a vertebral canal ( 8 ) up to an outer contour ( 2 . 2 ) of the ham an loin region, and another perpendicular ( 15 ) which is placed on a straight line ( 9 ) at a level of a rear (caudal) end ( 18 ) of the MGM ( 5 ) and stretches up to an outer contour ( 2 . 2 ) and a middle panniculus adiposus layer ( 17 ) in a cutlet region determined from two halves of a carcasses of a slaughtered pig in the ham and loin region using a total weight and obtaining relational data therefrom; in an active ongoing slaughtering operation in order to estimate yields of individual cuts performing a simulation calculation with available relational data taking into consideration a total weight of two associated halves of a carcass and determining the characteristic parameters and measured values for this specifically in the ham and loin region.