Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » New Orleans, Louisiana » Southern Regional Research Center » Cotton Structure and Quality Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #221050
Title: EVALUATION OF COLOR ALTERATION ON FABRICS BY IMAGE ANALYSIS

Author
item XU, BUGAO - UNIV TEXAS AUSTIN
item Bel, Patricia

Submitted to: American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists Review
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/22/2009
Publication Date: 10/1/2009
Citation: Xu, B., Bel, P. 2009. EVALUATION OF COLOR ALTERATION ON FABRICS BY IMAGE ANALYSIS. American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists Review, 9 (10):37-42.

Interpretive Summary: Information about changes on the surface color of fabrics is usually a visual evaluation and often inconsistent. Accurate, repeatable measurements are desirable to textile manufacturers for quality control. This paper will report on the comparison of image analysis to the manual evaluation of crocking, flat abrasion, edge abrasion, and white speck levels. Image analysis provides direct, fast and high-volume measurements of fabric quality. Image analysis has great potential to be regularly used for quality measurements because of its high efficiency in sample measurement and data processing. Overall, these tests show that the image analysis, this method proves to make color evaluation easier as well as more accurate.

Technical Abstract: Evaluation of color changes is usually done manually and is often inconsistent. Image analysis provides a method in which to evaluate color-related testing that is not only simple, but also consistent. Image analysis can also be used to measure areas that were considered too large for the colorimeter. This paper compares four tests (crocking, flat abrasion, edge abrasion, and white speck levels) that evaluate changes on the surface of the fabric. Each of these tests will be used in order to evaluate the color change, or difference in the color of the fabric surface. The system is able to isolate the areas of the fabric, which are affected by the tests, therefore evaluating solely the area that has been affected. The tests show that the image analysis, when compared to other methods is able to provide an accurate reading and a more effective method in general, and not only saves time but also money.