This innovation project is the second stage of the feasibility study “Vision and Artificial Intelligence for hide grading”

During this year 2023, the development of the second stage of the Leather Eyes project is being carried out.

Leather Cluster Barcelona has driven this continuation of the project following the positive results of the feasibility study “Vision and Artificial Intelligence for hide grading”, which demonstrated the viability of using this technology to detect and classify the natural imperfections of hides and production defects.

It is worth noting that, in the tests implementing Vision and Artificial Intelligence technology in hide grading carried out during the first phase of the project, accuracy rates of 84% were obtained, a figure higher than initially expected. It is estimated that with a larger image database the accuracy rate could exceed 90%.

Leather Cluster Barcelona, the company Picvisa and Curtidos Badia are taking part in this second stage of the project. The purpose of this collaborative project, with innovation as its focus and applying technology to hide grading in order to improve processes, is to make it possible to establish a mechanism that brings objectivity to the grading process, makes it more consistent, and generates evidence about the quality of the raw material purchased so as to optimise procurement. Grading is a highly significant operation because of its economic impact on the business, since the cost of the hide as a raw material is usually around 50% of the total manufacturing cost.

The purpose of this second part of the Leather Eyes project is experimental development, the construction of a piece of equipment that can be integrated into automatic processing lines with the aim of analysing whole hides automatically and drawing up a detailed quality map, in order subsequently to apply the knowledge acquired to finished leather as well.

In this regard, at this stage of the project, the design and construction of the hardware system (a gantry of image-capture cameras) and its installation on the measuring line have already been completed, and more than 1,000 images have been captured, which are being processed for the development of the intelligent grading algorithms.

Both the feasibility study and this second stage have received funding from ACCIÓ (Department of Enterprise and Labour), under the competitive strengthening grants for the entities that make up the Catalonia Clusters Programme 2021-2023.

The Leather Eyes project was presented at the 11th Strategic Immersion of cluster teams organised by ACCIÓ, on 12 July in Blanes. It is a working day for sharing knowledge, vision for the future and ecosystem challenges in order to boost the competitiveness of companies.

During the 11th Strategic Immersion, with representatives of the 27 Catalan clusters, Mònica Santamans, project manager of Leather Cluster Barcelona, shared the Leather Eyes project with everyone attending, giving details of the purpose of the project in terms of innovation in manufacturing methods and processes, and of the objectives, challenges and results achieved so far.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector. The cluster is an entity accredited under the Catalonia Clusters programme and is supported by Acció.