Patent Document ID: 9689803
Application ID: 15133652
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for measuring a chemical characteristic of a material comprising: providing a chemical measurement apparatus comprising, in combination, a calibration unit and a container comprising a sample of the material, the calibration unit comprising a front portion and an imaging background positioned behind the container and viewable through the container and the sample of the material contained therein, wherein a portion of the sample of the material is positioned in front of the imaging background so as to form a sample imaging region, and a calibration strip extending along the front portion, the calibration strip comprising a location marker and a plurality of calibration indicia juxtaposed in relation to the location marker, each of the plurality of calibration indicia having a different color; capturing, with a computing device, an image comprising the location marker, the plurality of calibration indicia, and the sample imaging region; performing a calibration step comprising: analyzing the image to determine the location of the location marker within the image, calculating, by referencing the location of the location marker, the location within the image of each of the plurality of calibration indicia, extracting a non-standardized color value from each of the plurality of the calibration indicia, comparing each of the extracted non-standardized color values to previously stored standardized color values for a corresponding calibration indicia, and generating a calibration model as a function of comparing the extracted non-standardized color values to the previously stored standardized color values; analyzing the sample imaging region from the image to extract a sample color vector; applying the calibration model to the sample color vector to generate a calibrated sample color vector; and analyzing, with respect to a chemical characteristic model, the calibrated sample color vector to determine the measurement of the chemical characteristic of the material.