Towards automatic tree rings detection in images of scanned wood samples

In this paper, the problem of automation of dendrochronological measurements is considered. In particular, a fully automatic, image-based approach for detecting tree-ring boundaries in wood core images is introduced. The method is based on image gradient peak detection and linking. Unlike other existing approaches, the proposed method performs well on a variety of wood types and corresponding tree species. The results of applying the proposed approach to scanned images of wood cores representing 12 tree species (4 conifer and 8 angiosperm) are presented and discussed. Analysis of the results shows that the method performs almost faultlessly for conifer species, detecting almost 100% of tree-ring boundaries. In the case of diffuse-porous species, the results are not quite as good, but still at a level of 85% of properly detected tree-ring boundaries. For ring-porous species, the method has some problems, which are described in the paper. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.