WAVELET TEXTURAL FEATURES FROM ULTRASONIC ELASTOGRAMS FOR MEAT QUALITY PREDICTION

Ultrasonic elastography was used for quantitative imaging of strain an d elastic modulus distribution in meat samples. This article proposes the application of wavelet wavelet analysis for textural feature extra ction from these images. In this article, the wavelet analysis is brie fly introduced, the application of elastography for imaging meat muscl es is reviewed, and a procedure of generating a wavelet transform of m eat elastogram for the extraction of textural features is suggested. W avelet analysis is then applied on beef samples for elastogram feature extraction compared to prior work based on Haralick's method. For bee f tenderness prediction wavelet features produced significantly higher R-2 values (0.7-0.9) in linear statistical models than Haralick's fea tures (0.1-0.8).