Traceability of logs by means of digital images

The aim of this project is to verify the traceability of logs on the basis of additional data acquisition in the forest and to describe the main methodical framework for this approach to be taken. With an unambiguous identification of the origin of a particular board not only the relevant production and transport processes (from forestry to notch and grading) will be analyzed and optimized, but also the customers can accurately be informed about the origin of the wooden products (e.g. of a table). In times of increasing awareness and demand for guarantees of origin and certificates on the part of the customer, this information is of great importance for the timber industry. The traceability of timber is an active field of scientific research in the value chain of wood. Various approaches, such as the use of RFID tags for traceability have not been adequately solved yet. For this reason a new approach will be investigated in this project. The basics between the theoretical and methodical foundations for the unique identification of the logs in the sawmill and at the grading line will be assessed using additional digital imaging in the forestry and the application of biometric data analysis. In addition, data are collected with a high resolution CT scanner to check compliance of CT images and digital images from the forest. This compliance is of interest due to the increasing importance of log sorting using x-ray scanning systems in the sawmills. Questions to be answered are how to manage data acquisition, data handling and data processing. While for data collection especially the influence of the forest environment is difficult to control and respectively the different transport and storage conditions, the challenge for the data repository and processing will be the specification of adequate and inadequate measurement categories. The results of this project should demonstrate that traceability is possible on the basis of digital images and the corresponding fundamental issues of image acquisition and image processing can be answered. These findings provide the basis for further research projects with machinery and equipment manufacturers so that the traceability of digital images in the timber industry can be implemented in the future. Research Team (Area of expertise within the project): Priv. Doz. FH-Prof. Dr. Alexander Petutschnigg (Wood Technology, CT Scanning, Project Leader) Univ.-Doz.Dr. Karl Entacher (Mathematics and Scientific Computing) Ao.Prof. Dr. Andreas Uhl (Image and Video Analysis and Multimedia Security) Two doctoral students N.N (Image Analysis, Wood Technology) Two diploma students N.N Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Salzburg, Austria (http://www.fh-salzburg.ac.at) University of Salzburg, Department of Computer Science, Austria (http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at)

The aim of this project was to examine the traceability of roundwood on the basis of additional data acquisition in forestry and to describe the essential methodological framework for this approach. Through a clear determination of the origin of a specific board, not only the relevant production and transport processes (from forestry to the log breakdown and lumber grading) can be analyzed and optimized, furthermore the customer can be informed exactly about the origin of the wood in his products (e.g. A table). In times of increasing sensitivity and the demand for certificates of origin from the customers, these information is of great importance for the timber industry. In this project, biometric methods were developed on the basis of recognition algorithms for fingerprints, but also for iris scan data. Since image generation is carried out under harsh conditions in the forest as well as in the sawmill, methods for the generation of data and the development of suitable image processing methods had to be developed. On the basis of this project the foundations for the traceability of roundwood based of digital images were developed successfully.