Abstract

We have investigated the relationship between visual impressions of black fabrics and their image features from the viewpoint of Kansei engineering. The term "Kansei" means "human sensibility," and Kansei engineering is an approach to connect the human sensibility to engineering applications. This study aims to present some basic information to connect the visual impressions for the texture characteristics of fabrics arisen from Kansei with features obtained by image processing.

In this paper, some techniques of image analysis in order to analyze some of the visual impressions, such as blackness, formality and warmth of the black fabrics are discussed. We carry out a sensory vision test on various and typical black fabrics and derive texture characteristics from image features by digital image processing. Mechanical properties of the fabrics were also measured, since visual impressions of fabrics often correspond to mechanical characteristics caused not only from yarn structures but also from fibrous features. We unify these results using a statistical analysis to find relationships between the human visual impressions measured by the sensory test and the texture characteristics obtained by the image processing techniques as well as the measurement of mechanical properties.

It is found by this study that differences in the visual impressions of texture characteristics are derived better using the image features by the digital image processing than using the mechanical properties, and it is realized to classify the black fabrics objectively by unifying the results of the sensory test, the of mechanical properties, and texture characteristics.

Keywords

Black fabrics, Kansei, Visual impressions, Image features, Image processing