An Egg Volume Measurement System Based on the Microsoft Kinect

Abstract

Measuring the volume of bird eggs is a very important task for the poultry industry and ornithological research due to the high revenue generated by the industry. In this paper, we describe a prototype of a new metrological system comprising a 3D range camera, Microsoft Kinect (Version 2) and a point cloud post-processing algorithm for the estimation of the egg volume. The system calculates the egg volume directly from the egg shape parameters estimated from the least-squares method in which the point clouds of eggs captured by the Kinect are fitted to novel geometric models of an egg in a 3D space. Using the models, the shape parameters of an egg are estimated along with the egg’s position and orientation simultaneously under the least-squares criterion. Four sets of experiments were performed to verify the functionality and the performance of the system, while volumes estimated from the conventional water displacement method and the point cloud captured by a survey-grade laser scanner serve as references. The results suggest that the method is straightforward, feasible and reliable with an average egg volume estimation accuracy 93.3% when compared to the reference volumes. As a prototype, the software part of the system was implemented in a post-processing mode. However, as the proposed processing techniques is computationally efficient, the prototype can be readily transformed into a real-time egg volume system.

Geometric Modelling for 3D Point Clouds of Elbow Joints in Piping Systems

“…An inner center ( ) was readily computed by estimating the intersection between two central axes of the best fit cylinders. After that, the joint was translated to the inner center, and the golden section search algorithm [ 25 ] applied to estimate initial values of Ω and Ψ by setting the rotations about an axis passing through the inner center and the X - Y plane [ 20 ]. Finally, the initial of A is the distance between the original and the inner center.…”

“…Accurate geometric models can be used to estimate the volume of an object without complete measurement of the object surface. For example, Chan et al [ 20 ] proposed a set of geometric models for bird eggs. The models were incorporated into a least-squares algorithm which can estimate the volume of eggs based on a point cloud (incomplete) of half of the egg surface obtained from a single scan.…”

DietSensor: Automatic Dietary Intake Measurement Using Mobile 3D Scanning Sensor for Diabetic Patients

“…A popular TOF sensor currently in use in academia is the Kinect sensor V2 and has been used in a variety of fields, as shown in [ 4 ]. An example of the Kinect sensor used for food measurement is the measurement of egg volume with accuracy reaching 93% [ 5 ]. However, common issues with TOF sensors are the warm-up time and temperature compensation of the sensor, as shown in [ 6 , 7 ].…”

Automated Measurement of Heart Girth for Pigs Using Two Kinect Depth Sensors

“…Machine vision technology for measuring the size of livestock has advanced from methods based on two-dimensional images to methods using three-dimensional point clouds [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Methods of using two-dimensional images to measure the body size of livestock are easy and inexpensive [ 12 , 13 ], but they can be affected by complex background and lighting conditions, and only limited body size information can be collected [ 14 ].…”