A Shot-Noise Model for Paper Fibres with Non-uniform Random Orientations

The surface properties of newsprint and other paper qualities are to a great extent determined by the properties of the cellulose fibres. An appropriate description of these fibres as they appear in the paper is therefore important and can be used for quality classification and process monitoring. We suggest a model that considers the fibre geometry and appearance. It is based on a two-dimensional shot-noise process. The model is fit by minimizing a weighted least squares distance between the model-based and estimated covariance functions and this provides estimates of the fibre size, intensity and the non-uniform distribution of the fibre orientation. The model is applied to simulated and real data.