AUTOMATED PROCESS FOR DETERMINING AMOUNT OF MEAT REMAINING ON ANIMAL CARCASS
An automated process assesses an amount of meat remaining on a trimmed animal carcass by generating image data of the carcass and processing the image data in a computer to calculate the amount of meat remaining on the carcass. The automated process can be carried out using an equation developed by counting pixels in an area of interest in images of a plurality of reference trimmed carcasses from which the remaining meat is thereafter scraped and weighed, to produce data points used to develop the equation which is then used to calculate the amount of meat remaining on a trimmed carcass as it proceeds down a processing line.