Field imaging techniques for direct characterization of sand core drilling samples

The rapid growth of microcomputer technology and the practical contemporary decrease of their costs, enable today to apply image processing and analysis techniques to a wider spectrum of applications that hitherto: the “automatic field” characterization of sands core drilling sample is one of this application. This paper will introduce the reader in the world of RGB color imaging techniques applied to sample images obtained by a direct acquisition of core drilling specimen as they result by conventional drilling. Simple and reliable techniques are presented in order to carry out a set of information useful for characterization of the sampled rocks for stratigraphy. A comparison between the information obtained by the proposed approach and those obtained by traditional detailed analysis at laboratory scale was made. The results were critically analyzed and discussed. The study was carried out on an industrial sand ore located in central Italy