Patent ID: 8233667

Claim:
An apparatus for automatic analysis of size and shape of a plurality of sample objects selected from minerals, rocks, gravel, natural, manufactured or recycled aggregates and the like, the apparatus comprising: a) a feeder unit for feeding said objects interspaced in a stream onto a conveying belt; b) an illumination source that casts a collimated beam of light across said conveying belt; c) image capturing means comprising at least one image detector for capturing an image of the reflection of said planar beam illuminating said object; the apparatus further comprising a control system being provided with processing means having stored therein a computer program and a memory for controlling mechanical and hardware parts of the equipment and for storing captured images, the control system being adapted to process a sequence of images of said object to automatically determine the size, and shape of said objects by implementing a morphological algorithm to calculate a pseudo-volume loss value which is correlated to roundness or angularity parameter and/or the class, and returning parameters representing the size and shape of the objects, said shape parameters including parameters indicating form and angularity.