Objective Beef Hide Grading (HyperSpectral Defect Grading – Preliminary Investigation)

Summary

​Cattle hides are currently subjectively graded according to brands (size and position), open horn marks, healed scratches, such as barbed wire marks, insect damage, flay cuts, bacterial damage from poor cure or delays in processors, growth wrinkles and thickness and size of hide.  On the grading table in a tannery grades can range in price from $10/m2for reject leather to $21.50/m2 for first grade leather. Between these extremes, there is a graduated scale of price. All of this pricing is subjectively determined.

This project is the first stage in understanding how hyperspectral imaging or other vision and sensing technologies may be able to objective determine and measure some of the defects known to cause hide downgrades.  This project collected, scanned, and analysed a range of hides exhibiting various defects using HyperSpectral Imaging (HSI) to determine whether defects can be objectively identified and classified, and potentially offer objective grading of hides.