Automatic inspection of density in yarn-dyed fabrics by utilizing fabric light transmittance and Fourier analysis

Yarn density measurement is a significant part of yarn-dyed fabric analysis, traditionally based on reflective image analysis. In this paper, utilizing fabric light transmittance, a method for two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform (2D DFT) analysis on the transmission fabric image is developed for fabric density inspection. First, the power spectrum is generated from the fabric image by a 2D DFT. Next, the yarn skew angles are detected based on the power spectrum analysis. Then the fabric image is reconstructed by an inverse 2D DFT. Finally, projection curves are generated from the reconstructed images and the number of yarns is counted according to the peaks and valleys to obtain the fabric density. Through a comparison between analysis on the reflective and transmission images of multiple-color fabrics, it is proved that the latter method can segment the yarns with more satisfactory accuracy. Furthermore, the experimental and theoretical analyses demonstrate that the proposed method is effective for the density inspection of yarn-dyed fabrics with good robustness and great accuracy.