Patent ID: 8031910

Claim:
A method of optically analyzing seed and/or grain quality, comprising: a) acquiring an image of a seed/grain sample from an illuminated area of a stage, a first light source positioned to project light through said stage which supports the sample, the first light being of sufficient intensity such that at least some light passes through both the stage and the sample, the illuminated area is illuminated with said light source wherein said light source comprises non-polarized visible halogen illumination, said image comprising a seed/grain sample, the image comprising a plurality of pixels wherein each pixel has at least an associated Red (R), Green (G), and Blue (B) color value; b) acquiring said image of said sample with a camera, said camera positioned to capture light from said first light source and from a second light source which light has either passed through the sample or has reflected from said sample in combination with a flash of xenon light to compensate for inconsistencies in pixel intensity ranges across said acquired image, c) identifying a subset of pixels in said image that correspond to seed/grain areas of said image, said grain pixels, d) identifying another subset of pixels that correspond to hard endosperm portions of the seed/grain sample, said hard endosperm pixels; and, e) analyzing pixels selected from the group consisting of: the plurality of pixels, the grain pixels and the hard endosperm pixels to assert the seed/grain quality, wherein said seed/grain color quality is analyzed based on the hard endosperm pixels.