Machine vision system for color sorting wood edge-glued panel parts

This paper describes an automatic color sorting system for hardwood edge-glued panel parts. The color sorting system simultaneously examines both faces of a panel part and then determines which face has the "better" color given specified color uniformity and priority defined by management. The real-time color sorting system software and hardware are briefly described. An actual working system has undergone extensive plant testing capable of sorting red-oak panel parts into a number of color classes at plant production speeds. Initial test results show that the system can generate over 91 percent acceptable panels from automatically sorted panel parts. These results exceeded target plant production goals.