Patent ID: 7110572

Claim:
A process for analysing an ovine animal carcase which includes the steps of: providing an image capture means for capturing image data relating to an ovine animal carcase, presenting an ovine animal carcase to the image capture means, the carcase being positioned with the dorsal view of the carcase presented directly to the image capture means, capturing image data for the dorsal view of the carcase by the image capture means, processing the image data so as to automatically identify predetermined anatomical points of the carcase, deriving dimensional measurements for the carcase by using the anatomical points identified, and deriving at lease one characterising parameter related to fatness of the carcase by processing colour data included in the captured image data in conjunction with the derived dimensional measurements, the colour data processed being the colour data for at least one predetermined selected surface area of the carcase known or determined to have a significant correlation to the characterising parameter related to fatness, wherein the process includes the further step of processing the image data to identify the tail of the ovine animal carcase, the identification of the tail comprising identification of lateral edges of the tail which are delineated in the captured image by generally linear darker areas extending lengthwise relative to the spine of the carcase, the process including the further step of determining the width of the tail between the lateral edges, and wherein the step of deriving at least one characterising parameter includes deriving a parameter related to the predicted yield of the carcase using the width of the tail as a variable in a carcase yield predictive equation.