Research on Bead Image Recognition Algorithm for Determination of Insulator Levers

Rui Zhang, Fangmin Dong

Institute of Intelligent Vision and Image Information China Three Gorges University Yichang, Hubei Province 443002, China zhr@ctgu.edu.cn, fmdong@ctgu.edu.cn

Zhang Gao
Information Technology Center China Three Gorges University Yichang, Hubei Province 443002, China gaozhang@ctgu.edu.cn

AbstractHydrophobicity of insulator surface is an important index to evaluate electrical properties of insulation material, and insulator level is decided by hydrophobicity of insulator surface. In this paper, we give the whole process of bead image recognition algorithm for the assessment of insulator level. The key technique is the effective segmentation for original hydrophobicity image. Firstly, in order to eliminate horizontal stripe noise in original images, image preprocessing should be done, through analysis and comparison, directional filtering is used. Secondly, Hough transform is used for detection of halftorus region, which are shadows of beads because of illumination, and apparently belongs to image background, and thus the regions are marked as background for the following segmentation. Thirdly, algorithm for region segmentation based on gray similarity and gradient similarity is used, which fully use features of bead image, it start from gray similarity and gradient similarity of inner bead regions, and through region growing, segmentation of bead regions is effectively finished. Finally, shape factor method combined with the biggest bead area method is used to determine hydrophobicity level. The experiments show that satisfactory results have been achieved for determination of insulator level. Keywords-hydrophobicity; transform; insulator level bead recognition; Hough

consistent results, digital image processing is used to improve traditional visual measurement, and some research institutes at home and abroad have tried to use digital image processing to judge hydrophobicity of insulator and have obtained some achievements [8, 10]. There are three steps while digital image processing is applied into surface spraying method: Step1. Preprocess image, in order to eliminate image noise, strength image and sharp boundary; Step2. Design bead image recognition algorithm; Step3. Design classification model, in order to determine the level of insulator. Above all, image recognition algorithm in step2 is the key point and difficulty, and its results influence directly the determination of level in step3. II. IMAGE PREPROCESSING

I.

INTRODUCTION (HEADING 1)

_____________________________

Hydrophobicity of insulator surface is an important index to evaluate electrical properties of insulation material; insulator level is decided by hydrophobicity of insulator surface. At present, there are three methods to measure the hydrophobicity of insulator surface: contact angle method, surface tension method, and surface spraying method. Compared with other two methods, surface spraying method has following advantages: easy operation, low requirement for inspection equipment, and also fitting for contaminated insulator surface, so it becomes a universal measurement at home and abroad. The processes of surface spraying method are as follows: spraying water on insulator surface according to a certain specification, and hydrophobicity is divided into typical seven levels (CH1-CH7) based on shapes and distributions of beads, and then, compared with typical image of every level to decide the hydrophobicity level artificially. Because of subjectivity, the results appear inconsistent inevitably, and it has great intensity of artificial analysis, so in order to getting a more objective and

Most background of insulator shape are much complex, meanwhile, water transparency leads to smaller gray difference, and reflection of light to water leads to fuzzy boundary of that side, so they make it difficult for bead recognition of spraying bead image. In order to get better recognition results, image preprocessing should be done firstly. Through comparison and analysis, in our paper, directional filtering algorithm is used to realize noise interference suppression and weaken influence from complex background to bead recognition, it can eliminate effectively horizontal stripe of image, and can better realize noise interference suppression and sharp boundary [6, 7, and 12]. A. Directional filtering In reality, both typical bead images of seven levels and real images have noise of horizontal stripes. These stripes have following features: parallel with each other basically but have different brightness and every part of the same stripe have different gray values. If time domain smoothing algorithm or frequency domain low-pass filter is used to eliminate noise stripe of high frequency, it can not eliminate noise effectively, meanwhile, it make severe loss for image details [7]. Two-dimensional discrete fourier transform is a typical orthogonal transform, it make energy distribute to low frequency part, and boundaries, edges in image reflect in high frequency part. If object shape or arrangement of

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image presents some direction, amplitude spectrum of high value also presents directional distributions which are orthogonal with target direction of image [8]. It means that spectrogram of stripe is composed of highlights, viz. big gray value, and perpendicular to lateral axis basically. From above discussion and after analysis image, stripe spectrogram distribute mainly in first column and middle part of other columns, and highlights in four corners are not produced by stripes, if all highlights are processed without difference, some useful information will lose, that is why low-pass filter leads to details loss, so we design directional filtering, after fourier transform, complex sequence corresponding to image pixel finish one filter though directional filtering [12]. The algorithm of directional filtering is as follows: Step1. Direct current component keeps invariant; Step2. If complex amplitude before filtering is bigger than threshold and position of the pixel corresponding to that complex locate in the first row or in middle part of other rows, filtering process will be done, or else keeps invariant; Step3. Let the filtering pixel equals to the most adjacent complex which belongs to the same row but smaller than threshold. The specific eliminating processes of stripes are as follows; Step1. Fill gray image to the size of 2m*2n ( width and height of image are w and h, m and n are the smallest positive integers which satisfies the conditions 2m >= w, and 2n >= h ), and fill 0 to vacancy; Step2. Do two-dimensional discrete fourier transform to the 2m*2n image; Step3. Though fourier transform, complex sequences will do directional filtering; Step4. After directional filtering, do two-dimensional discrete fourier inversion to the complex sequences and cut the adding part, then obtain image after eliminating stripes. Fig. 1 is the result after directional filtering, and we can see that stripes decrease apparently and there is little loss for original image.

III.

IMAGE RECOGNITION ALGORITHM

A. Hough transform Hough transform is a region boundary processing algorithm of digital image processing [1]. Though transform from image space domain to parameter domain, sin curve of corresponding object boundary pixel is obtained, and corresponding slope of boundary is determined by cross points, and thus boundary corner is calculated by slope difference. Hough transform is always used for detection for round, ellipse and other curves [2]. For gray image of bead image recognition of insulator, Hough transform is used firstly. Because of illumination, to some beads, two boundaries are detected for only one bead as shown in fig. 2 (a), they look like half-torus as shown in fig. 2 (b), one is the correct bead boundary, and another is the wrong bead boundary which is the bead shadow boundary. Apparently, the half-torus region belongs to image background. So before region segmentation, half-torus regions are marked as background, this is better for accuracy of the following segmentation.

(a) Original image

(b) Image after Hough transform

Figure 2. Image before and after Hough transform

B. Region segmentation based on gray similarity and gradient similarity The key technique of region segmentation is to find pixel groups. Center connecting region growing method is a commonly used region segmentation method, it starts from a pixel which satisfies a certain similarity detection condition and grows region in all directions [9]. Compared with single connecting region growing and hybrid connecting region growing, it has better noise immunity. For a gray image, gray feature, gradient feature, and texture feature are always considered in similarity detection rules. For traditional center connecting region growing method, average gray is taken as a similarity detection rule. Suppose the image has Gaussian white noise whose average value is zero. At pixel (i, j), the probability of noise value n is decided by,

p(n) =

n2 1 exp 2 , 2 2

(1)

(a) Original image

(b) Image after directional filtering

Figure 1. Image before and after directional filtering.

in which, is standard deviation of noise. Because of white noise, the value of p(n) is irrelevant to the position of pixel (i, j), it means that noise affect all the pixels in the same



way, then the value of average gray is decided by the following integral (2),

p(k) =

1 2

z2 exp 2 d z 2

(2)

Step2. According to (5), if the pixel satisfies the two rules of gray similarity and gradient similarity, it will be incorporated into growing region and every feature values of the new region will be recalculated, or else, adjacent pixel will be taken to be judged until neither pixel can be incorporated into growing region.

That is the error function erf(k) at rule of average gray measurement, and if the region has n pixels, the wrong probability is only 1-(99.7%)n, that means when average gray measurement is used, gray variation should be as small as possible, and then effective region segmentation can be obtained. Because hydrophobicity images always have much noises, only rely on gray similarity to extract bead region is not enough, gradient feature is introduced into similarity detection in this paper. Based on noise suppression, gray similarity and gradient similarity are combined to taken as region growing rule, making full use of abundant boundary information is better for bead region extraction and thus it can provide more accurate premise for determination of insulator level [11]. In this paper, Sobel operator is used to determine gradient feature of every pixel. Sobel operator has some ability for noise suppression, first weighed average is calculated and then differentiation is done, and finally gradient value is obtained.

p | f (k , l ) m p | 1 m TP , P | g (k , l ) mg | 1 g m g Tg

(5)

in which, f(k,l) and g(k,l) are gray value and gradient value of awaiting pixel, and Tp, Tg are growing thresholds and reflect harsh degree during growing process. Much experimental results show that, when value range of Tp is 2040 and value range of Tg is 40-60, the segmentation effect is better. In this paper, Tp is set to 30, and Tg is set to 50. IV. DETERMINATION OF INSULATOR LEVEL

g (i, j ) = g[ f (i, j )] = max{| g i |, | g j |} ,

(3)

in which, gi is horizontal gradient value, gj is vertical gradient value. Based on (3), combination of gray and gradient measurement is taken as a rule used in the improved center connecting region growing method. The steps of rules are as follows: Step1. Mark existing growing region as Ri, and according to (4), calculate gray average value mp , gradient average value mg , gray mean square deviation p , gradient mean square and deviation g of region Ri in gray space and gradient space respectively, and these are all taken as consistent feature values to evaluate pixels between existing growing region and awaiting region.

After bead image recognition, calculate much feature parameters, such as the average bead number, coverage rate, and evening rate, to finish digitalizing image, and then the following task is how to use these feature parameters to determine the insulator level, and that is a classification problem. At present, commonly used models are neural network, decision tree, Bayes classification, k-nearest neighbor rule, shape factor method, and the biggest bead area method. Shape factor method is proposed by Janpanese TOKORO T [4] to determine the hydrophobicity level of insulator, viz. the value of fc is calculated to give hydrophobicity level.

1 m p = f (i, j ) n (i , j )R , 1 mg = g (i, j ) n ( i , j )R ,

fc =

4a c2 ,

(6)

p = g =

1 f (i, j ) m p ) 2 n ( i , j )R

1 g (i, j ) mg ) 2 n (i , j )R

(4)

in which, a is area of the biggest bead, c is perimeter of the biggest bead. Based on shape factor method, many scholars find that it has better accuracy when shape factor method is combined with the biggest bead area method to determine hydrophobicity level [5, 6]. As shown from tableI, and from standard images of seven hydrophobicity levels, we can see that from HC1 to HC7, the biggest bead area occupying the whole area becomes bigger and bigger until HC7 becomes 100%. So, parameter of the biggest bead area occupying the whole area has been introduced into determination method, and taken as another feature value k, viz.



k=

the biggest bead area the whole image area

(7)

TABLE I.

THE COMBINATION OF SHAPE FACTOR METHOD AND THE

BIGGEST BEAD AREA METHOD

Hydrophobicity level HC1 HC2 HC3 HC4 HC5 HC6 HC7 k k k k k k k

k and fc (0,1%), fc [0.5, 1] [0.5, 1]

[1%,4%), fc

apparently belongs to image background, and thus the regions are marked as background. Thirdly, algorithm for region segmentation based on gray similarity and gradient similarity is proposed, which fully use features of bead image, it start from gray similarity and gradient similarity of inner bead regions, and through region growing, segmentation of bead regions is effectively finished. Finally, shape factor method combined with the biggest bead area method is used to determine hydrophobicity level. The experiments show that satisfactory results have been achieved for determination of insulator level. REFERENCES
Davis LS, Hierarchical generalized Hough Transforms and Line segment Based generalized Hough Transforms, Pattern Recognition, 1982, 15(4), pp. 277-285. [2] Amir I, Algorithm for Finding the center of Circular Fiducials, Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing, 1990, 49, pp. 398-406.. [3] JAHN H, BARSCH R, WENDT E, The influence of Temperature on the recovery of the hydrophobicity on silicone rubber surfaces, Preceedings of 2002 Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena, Boston: IEEE international Symposium of Electrical Insulation, 2002, pp. 242-245. [4] TOKORO T. OMOTO Y, KOSAKIM, Image analysis of hydrop hobicity of polymer insulators using PVM, Annual Report Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena.New York: IEEE International Symposium of Electrical Insulation, 2002, pp. 581-584. [5] V NCENTL, Morphological grayscale reconstruction in image analysis, Applications and efficient algorithms, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 1993, 2(2), pp. 176-201. [6] IEC 62073 TS ED 1.0: Guide to the measurement of wettability of insulator surfaces. [7] Lou Xiongguang, Li Xianglin, Wang Zhensong, Stripe Noise Elimination of SAR Pitures, Journal of Image and Graphics, 1999, 4(3), pp. 252-255. [8] Zheng Nanning, Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, Beijing: National Defence Industry Press, 1998. [9] Sin,C.F., Leung,C.K., Image Segmentation by edge pixel classification with maximum entropy, Intelligent Multimedia, Video and Speed Processing, 2001, Proceeding of 2001 International Spmposium on 2-4 May 2001, pp. 283-286. [10] Janseen,H, Herden,A.C., The loss and recovery of hydrophobicity on ailicone rubber surface, 10th International Symposium on High Voltage Engineering, Montreal, Canada, 1997, pp. 145-150. [11] Yu Wen-wen, Sun Yi, Segementaion algorithm of hydrophobic image based on region similarity, Computer Applications, 2008, 7(3). [12] PENG Ke-xue, WANG Quan-de, WANG Xian-pei, Spray image analysis based measurement of hydrophobic of insulator surfaces, Insulating Materials, 2005(1) [1]

[4%,10%), fc [0.5, 1] [10%,40%), fc (0, 1] [40%,80%), fc (0, 1]] [80%,95%), fc (0, 1] [95%,100%), fc (0, 1]

After analysis and comparison, shape factor method combined with the biggest bead area method is used to determine the insulator level. Set seven kinds of samples which will be detected and corresponding samples which are detected are ai and bi (i = 1, 2, , 7), ci and di are sample numbers which belongs to HCi and not belongs to HCi in bi respectively, and also define the following two formulas to evaluate detection results, correct detection rate Ti = ci / ai, and wrong detection rate Fi = di / bi, 50 samples of every kind are selected to be detected, correct detection rate and wrong detection rate are shown in tableII statistically, and we can see that detection results are satisfactory.
TABLE II. Hydrophobicity level Ti(%) Fi(%) HC1 99 0.9 HC2 100 2.3 SAMPLE TEST RESULT HC3 94 3.3 HC4 96 3.9 HC5 94 3.4 HC6 96 1.7 HC7 94 1.1

V. CONCLUSION In this paper, we give the whole process of bead image recognition algorithm for the assessment of insulator level. The key technique is the effective segmentation for original hydrophobicity image. Firstly, in order to eliminate horizontal stripe noise in original images, directional filtering is done for the image preprocessing. Secondly, Hough transform is done for detection of half-torus region, which are shadows of beads because of illumination, and are