Enhanced detection algorithm for apple bruises using structured light imaging

Bruising reduces the edibility and marketability of fresh apples, inevitably causing economic losses for the apple industry. However, bruises lack obvious visual symptoms, which makes it challenging to detect them using imaging techniques with uniform or diffuse illumination. This study employed the structured light imaging (SLI) technique to detect apple bruises. First, the grayscale reflection images were captured under phase-shifted sinusoidal illumination at three different wavelengths (600, 650, and 700 nm) and six different spatial frequencies (0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20, 0.25, and 0.30 cycles mm⁻¹). Next, the grayscale reflectance images were demodulated to produce direct component (DC) images representing uniform diffuse illumination and amplitude component (AC) images revealing bruises. Then, by quantifying the contrast between bruised regions and sound regions in all AC images, it was found that bruises exhibited the optimal contrast when subjected to sinusoidal illumination at a wavelength of 700 nm and a spatial frequency of 0.25 mm⁻¹. In the AC image with optimal contrast, the developed h-domes segmentation algorithm to accurately segment the location and range of the bruised regions. Moreover, the algorithm successfully accomplished the task of segmenting central bruised regions while addressing the challenge of segmenting edge bruised regions complicated by vignetting. The average Intersection over Union (IoU) values for the three types of bruises were 0.9422, 0.9231, and 0.9183, respectively. This result demonstrated that the combination of SLI and the h-domes segmentation algorithm was a viable approach for the effective detection of fresh apple bruises.