An image segmentation algorithm for measurement of flotation froth bubble size distributions

Abstract

The bubble size distribution at the froth surface of a flotation cell is closely related to the process condi- tion and performance. The flotation performance can be reasonably predicted through continuous mea- suring the bubble size distribution by a machine vision system. In this work a new watershed algorithm based on whole and sub-image classification techniques is introduced and successfully validated by sev- eral laboratory and industrial scale froth images taken under different process conditions. The results indicate that the developed algorithms, in particular the sub-image classification based segmentation algorithm, can accurately and reliably identify the individual small and large bubbles in the actual froth images, which is often problematic.

Tasks

Reproductions