Recent Developments in US Hardwood Lumber Markets and Linkages to Housing Construction

Hardwood Lumber Scanning Tests to Determine NHLA Lumber Grades

This paper concerns the scanning, and grading of kiln-dried hardwood lumber. A prototype system is described that uses laser sources and a video camera to scan boards. The system automatically detects defects and wane, grades the boards, and then searches for higher value boards within the original board. The goal is to derive maximum commercial value based on current market lumber prices. This...

Prevention of Sapwood Discoloration in Hardwood Lumber

By EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Hardwood lumber drying in the South is subject to hot and humid weather that promotes enzymatic stain in sapwood. Research has long studied the problem and certain remedies have been proposed. Chemical dipping is the most commonly used method of preventing enzymatic stain. However, its application is only topical and does not prevent stain. A private operator, Danny Elder o...

Optimum edging and trimming of hardwood lumber

Before the adoption of an automated system for optimizing edging and trimming in hardwood mills, the performance of present manual systems must be evaluated to provide a basis for comparison. A study was made in which lumber values recovered in actual hardwood operations were compared to the output of a computer-based procedure for edging and trimming optimization. The optimization procedure wa...

Recent developments in US patent law

Automated Grading of Rough Hardwood Lumber

Any automatic hardwood grading system must have two components. The first of these is a computer vision system for locating and identifying defects on rough lumher. The second is a system for automatically grading boards based on the output of the computer vision system. This paper presents research results aimed at developing the first of these components. The challenge is to create robust met...