A method for fast, computerized detection of bruises in magnetic reson
ance images (MRI) of apples was developed. It uses a simple thresholdi
ng technique combined with considerations of the apple geometry to dis
tinguish between bright pixels representing the vascular system, and t
hose representing bruises. The algorithm was tested on 20 images of te
n Jonathan apples (before and after bruising), ten images of Golden De
licious apples and ten images of Hermon apples, and it demonstrated it
s ability to distinguish between bruised and non-bruised apples. This
is the first step in the development of a sensing method using three-d
imensional imaging and image analysis for detection of bruises.