AI in Forestry & Wood Processing

Performance of Neural Networks in Automated Detection of Wood Features in CT Images

This study applies artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to the automated analysis of computed tomography (CT) scans of wood logs for detecting internal qualitative features and segmenting bark. Using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), trained models accurately distinguish healthy and damaged regions and segment bark, including discontinuous parts. We introduce a novel pseudo-spatial representation by merging consecutive slices into red-green-blue (RGB) format, which improves prediction accuracy and model robustness across logs. To enhance interpretability, Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) highlights regions contributing most to defect detection, particularly knots. Comprehensive evaluation using Sørensen–Dice similarity coefficients and confusion matrices confirms the effectiveness of the proposed approach under industrial conditions. These findings demonstrate that AI-driven CT image analysis can address key limitations of current log-grading workflows and enable more reliable, objective, and scalable quality assessment for timber-dependent economies.