Patent ID: 7968814

Claim:
An optical grain sorter comprising: a transport device to continuously transport grains while widely spreading the grains; a defective grain removal device including air jet nozzles disposed in correspondence with grain fall-down paths formed at an end of the transport device; an image pickup device to take images of the grains at a detection position set in the fall- down paths; a contour comparator to output the contours of the grains as contour binary data on the basis of a comparison between image signals from the image pickup device and a contour threshold value set in advance; a defective portion determination device to compare the image signals from the image pickup device with a threshold value corresponding to a density and outputting as defective pixel binary data, a defective portion exceeding the threshold value and having an area equal to or larger than a set area; a grain display device to combine the contour binary data from the contour comparator and the defective pixel binary data from the defective portion determination device, and displaying the combined data on a monitor screen of a display device; a defective grain determination device to inform the defective grain removal device of any one of the grains having a colored portion in the contour as a grain to be removed; a defective portion highlight display device to produce a highlight display of the defective pixel binary data from the defective portion determination device on the monitor screen of the display device; a threshold value adjustment device; and an operative nozzle display device to indicate the position of any one of the air jet nozzles operated in correspondence with one of the grains having a colored portion.