Patent ID: 7190813

Claim:
A method for inspecting food products, the method comprising: (A) generating reference images of food products, each reference image being indicative of a food product of a different size, each reference image having optimized characteristics that are indicative of an acceptable food product, the optimized characteristics of each reference image comprising: (A1) an optimized red component; (A2) an optimized green component; (A3) an optimized blue component; and (A4) an optimized shape; (B) acquiring a sample image of a sample food product, the sample image comprising: (B1) a red component; (B2) a green component; (B3) a blue component; (B4) a sample shape; and (B5) a sample size; (C) comparing the sample size to each of the generated reference images; (D) selecting the reference image that is indicative of a food product having a size that is similar to the sample size; (E) generating a contrast image as a function of the selected reference image and the sample image, the contrast image being indicative of deviations of the sample image from the selected reference image, the contrast image comprising: (E1) a red component deviation value; (E2) a green component deviation value; (E3) a blue component deviation value; and (E4) a shape deviation value; and (F) determining an acceptability level of the sample food product, the acceptability level being a function of: (F1) the red component deviation value; (F2) the green component deviation value; (F3) the blue component deviation value; and (F4) the shape deviation value.