Assessing the extent of fungal discoloration on wood during laboratory trials is a subjective process which provides an opportunity for considerable variation between individual evaluators of specimens. The development of reliable systems for automatically assessing discoloration would minimize evaluator bias and permit comparisons between results from different laboratories. The use of image analysis for this purpose was explored on specimens treated with selected concentrations of an anti-stain chemical and inoculated with an array of stain fungi. The results indicated that ratings by the image analysis system were comparable to those produced-by a human evaluator. Further studies are contemplated to refine this system and improve the correlations with human ratings.

Download document (412 kb)
free for the members of IRG. Available if purchased.

Purchase this document