A rock fragmentation analysis system is provided for analyzing blasted rock (or
other fragmented particles) to assess quality of a blast for efficient processing
of subsequent operations in a mine, a quarry, etc. The system includes a hardware
system and an image processing system. The hardware system includes a camera and
a lighting system. The lighting system illuminates an area of the mine, quarry,
etc. where a load haul dump (LHD) vehicle passes through. Once the LHD vehicle
passes through the illuminated area, the camera provides video signals of scoop-top
view images of the LHD vehicle to the image processing system via known communication
means, such as hard-wired and wireless. The image processing system receives the
video signals, captures the scoop-top view images, evaluates the images for subsequent
fragmentation analysis, and performs the rock fragmentation analysis. The image
processing system performs these functions using several software modules. Two
such software modules are the Fragmentation Scanning (FragScan) and the
Fragmentation Analysis (FragAnalysis) software modules. The FragScan software
module scans the video signals until it captures a valid image for analysis by
the FragAnalysis software module. Once the FragScan triggers on the image, a raw
image and other details corresponding to the captured image are buffered for subsequent
rock fragmentation analysis by the FragAnalysis software module. The rock fragmentation
analysis is designed to estimate the major diameter of each rock visible in the
image. The overall size distribution of the rocks in the image is output by the
FragAnalysis software module, and the corresponding input image and the binary
blob image, i.e., the processed image, are stored by the image processing system.