Structure analysis of textile fabric based on automatic extraction of yarn positional information from three-dimensional CT image

In this paper, a novel method is proposed to non-destructively extract the yarn positional information for the structure analysis of a textile fabric from its three-dimensional (3D) image obtained from its X-ray computed tomography (CT). In this paper, a sequence of the points on the center line of each yarn of the sample fabric is defined as the yarn positional information. In order to extract the sequence, first, the directions of the yarns are estimated by correlating the voxels of the 3D CT image with a yarn model over the entire 3D CT image, from which the vector field of the yarn direction results. Then, the yarn positional information is extracted by reconstructing the yarn using the obtained vector field of the yarn direction. The effectiveness of this method is discussed by experimentally applying this method to the 3D CT image of a double-layered woven fabric.