Fabric wrinkle characterization and classification using modified wavelet coefficients and support-vector-machine classifiers

Wrinkling caused in wearing and laundry procedures is one of the most important performance properties of a fabric. Visual examination performed by trained experts is a routine wrinkle evaluation method in textile industry, however, this subjective evaluation is time-consuming. The need for objective, automatic and efficient methods of wrinkle evaluation has been increasing remarkably in recent years. In the present thesis, a wavelet transform based imaging analysis method was developed to measure the 2D fabric surface data captured by an infrared imaging system. After decomposing the fabric image by the Haar wavelet transform algorithm, five parameters were defined based on modified wavelet coefficients to describe wrinkling features, such as orientation, hardness, density and contrast. The wrinkle parameters provide useful information for textile, appliance, and detergent manufactures who study wrinkling behaviors of fabrics.
A Support-Vector-Machine based classification scheme was developed for automatic wrinkle rating. Both linear kernel and radial-basis-function (RBF) kernel functions were used to achieve a higher rating accuracy. The effectiveness of this evaluation method was tested by 300 images of five selected fabric types with different fiber contents, weave structures, colors and laundering cycles. The results show agreement between the proposed wavelet-based automatic assessment and experts’ visual ratings.