Automatic $St{\ddot{o}}ckigt$ Sizing Test Using Hue Value Variation of a Droplet

The $St{\ddot{o}}ckigt$ sizing test of the most-commonly used sizing tests is easily influenced by the individual testers' bias in recognizing red coloration. Therefore the test had to be modified to improve its reliability and reproducibility by automated recognition of a coloration procedure during testing. In order to achieve this, all measured variables occurring during the $St{\ddot{o}}ckigt$ test was first be analyzed and then reflected in the new automatic system. Secondly, the most important principle applied was to transform the RGB values of the droplet image to hue (H), saturation (S) and value (V) respectively. This is because RGB cannot be used as a color standard, owing to RGB's peculiarity of being seriously affected by the observer's point of view. Therefore, the droplet color had to be separated into three distinct factors, namely the HSV values, in order to allow linear analysis of the droplet color. When the average values of the vectors calculated during color variation from yellow to brown were plotted against time, it was possible to determine the vector value of hue, the most sensitive factor among HSV, at the specific time by differentiation of a function when it exceeds the critical point. Then, the specific time consumed up to the critical point was regarded as the $St{\ddot{o}}ckigt$ sizing degree. The conventional method took more time to recognize an ending point of coloration than the automatic method, and in addition the error ranges of the conventional sizing degrees on the specific addition points of AKD were wider than those of the automatic method.