Extraction of yarn positional information from three-dimensional CT image of textile fabric using a yarn model for its structure analysis

This paper proposes a novel method for analyzing a textile fabric structure to extract positional information regarding each yarn using three-dimensional X-ray computed tomography(3D CT) image.Positional relationship among the yarns can be reconstructed using the extracted yarn positional information.In this paper,a sequence of points on the center line of each yarn of the sample is defined as the yarn positional information,since the sequence can be regarded as the representative position of the yarn.The sequence is extracted by tracing the yarn.The yarn is traced by estimating the yarn center and direction and correlating the yarn part of the 3D CT image with a 3D yarn model,which is moved along the estimated yarn direction.The trajectory of the center of the yarn model corresponds to the positional information of the yarn.The application of the proposed method is shown by experimentally applying the proposed method to a 3D CT image of a double-layered woven fabric.Furthermore,the experimental results for a plain knitted fabric show that this method can be applied to even knitted fabrics.