Automation of the Surface Grading Task in the Ceramic Tile Industry

At the moment, there are many industries manufacturing flat surface materials that need to split their production into homogeneous series grouped by the global appearance of the final product. Commonly, these products are used as wall and floor coverings. Some of them are natural such as marble, granite or wooden boards, and others are artificial, such as ceramic tiles. The surface grading task is related with the automatic classification of flat pieces presenting random, pseudo-random or fixed surface patterns. The aim of surface grading is to split the production into different classes sorted by their global appearance, which depends on colour and texture properties. This book presents a wide view about the automation of the surface grading task focusing on the ceramic tile industry. It covers from the State of the Art in this subject to the practicalities through the experimental comparison of two literature methods and a novel approach. In addition, modern image acquisition and illumination systems are studied as well as real-time compliance in order to be able to to inspect the overall production at on-line rates.