MarblingPredictor

MarblingPredictor predicts the marbling score of dry-cured ham slices from automatically extracted square regions of interest, enabling quality control and categorization in the ham industry.

Key Features:

• Marbling Score Prediction: Predicts marbling scores for the three most representative ham muscles from square regions of interest automatically extracted from a ham slice.
• Fat Content Estimation: Estimates the rate of subcutaneous and intermuscular fat content in the ham slice.
• Image-Based Analysis: Performs on-line inter and intramuscular fat evaluation and marbling assessment from image analysis.
• Performance Validation: Achieves a mean absolute error of 0.53 between true and predicted marbling scores, with a correlation of 0.68 between computer and sensory scores.

Scientific Applications:

• Quality Control: Supports quality control in the ham industry through automated marbling assessment.
• Product Categorization: Enables classification of dry-cured ham slices based on visual intramuscular fat and its distribution.
• Research Applications: Provides a computational alternative to traditional sensory panels for marbling evaluation in research settings.

Methodology:

The software automatically extracts square regions of interest from ham slice images and predicts marbling scores using a model trained and tested on the HamMarbling dataset with marbling scores provided by sensory panellists.