PROCESSING OF DIGITAL IMAGES OF TOUCHING KERNELS BY ELLIPSE FITTING

An algorithm was developed to fit ellipses to digital images of separa ted and touching kernels with random orientations. The algorithm was e valuated for its ability to count objects in the images and to estimat e length, width, perimeter, and area of individual objects. The estima ted parameters were compared with the parameters determined using conv entional image processing techniques on images of physically-separated kernels. All 300 kernels were counted correctly. In some situations, it may be possible that kernels would align in such a manner that they would not be separated and counted correctly by the algorithm. The es timated size features were not significantly different from the conven tionally-determined parameters at p >0.05.