Investigation of the eye formation in semi-hard cheese by using X-ray Computed Tomography

Abstract

The eye formation in semi-hard cheese was investigated by using X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT). In order to set the optimal scan settings, a study of parameters was undertaken. Therefore, five different scan parameter combinations and two beam hardening correction (BHC) methods were tested. An Iterative Artifact Reduction (IAR) was compared to a correction approach that is based on a collection of predefined BHC curves. VG Studio MAX and Modular Algorithms for Volume Images (MAVI) were used to determine the overall volume of the eyes, as well as the number, size, distribution and the shape factor. As a result, the cheese sample contained 749 eyes and the overall volume of the eyes was 440.84 cm3. The sphericity of the measured eyes was 0.81 with a standard deviation of 0.178. Therefore, XCT and different imaging software tools allow an exact characterization of the inner structures of cheese.