Quantitative evaluation of pork marbling score along Longissimus thoracis using NIR images of rib end

This study investigated the potential of using the image of the rib end to assess pork marbling scores along Longissimus thoracis. Previous studies have shown the success of hyperspectral imaging in marbling score assessment of individual pork chops. In this research, hyperspectral imaging methods were employed to study the possibility of pork marbling assessment along longissimus thoracis using the NIR image of the rib end. Pattern analysis algorithms were used to extract efficient features from the rib end of the pork loin. Multiple linear regression (MLR) and leave-one-out cross validation were applied to build prediction models using the extracted features. Experiments showed that the prediction models performed well with correlation coefficients of calibration (Rc) ≥ 0.94, correlation coefficients of cross validation (Rcv) ≥ 0.88, correlation coefficients of prediction (Rp) ≥ 0.89. The promising results indicated the potential of using NIR images of rib ends for the assessment of marbling score along longissimus thoracis.