Fabric surface roughness evaluation using wavelet-fractal method - Part I: Wrinkle, smoothness and seam pucker

A wavelet-fractal method to calculate the fractal dimension is proposed to objectively evaluate the surface roughness of fabric wrinkle, smoothness appearance and seam pucker. The proposed method was validated using the fractal surfaces produced from the mathematical functions and compared with the box and cube counting methods. The more accurate three-dimensional mesh grid data points of wrinkle replicas, smoothness appearance replicas and seam pucker samples were obtained using a three-dimensional, non-contact scanning system. As a supplementary reference the standard roughness parameters, which differentiate the degree of fabric surface roughness, were also investigated. The results show that the fractal dimension measured by the wavelet-fractal method as well as the surface average mean curvature show the power to clearly discern the grades of wrinkle, smoothness appearance as well as seam pucker, and thus can evaluate the fabric surface roughness objectively and quantitatively.