# LeaData a novel reference data of leather images for automatic species identification

**Authors:** Anjli Varghese, Malathy Jawahar, A. Amalin Prince

PMC · DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-88040-1 · Scientific Reports · 2025-02-06

## TL;DR

This paper introduces LeaData, a large leather image dataset for automatic species identification using digital microscopes.

## Contribution

The novel LeaData dataset provides diverse leather images for accurate species identification using grain surface analysis.

## Key findings

- LeaData contains 38,172 images of four species from 137 leather samples.
- The dataset includes both ideal and non-ideal grain patterns from different body parts.
- The goal is to enable smart species identification for leather specialists and manufacturers.

## Abstract

In the leather industry, the mammalian skins of buffalo, cow, goat, and sheep are the permissible materials for leather-making. They serve the trade of quality leather products; hence, the knowledge of animal species in leather is inevitable. The traditional identification techniques are prone to ambiguous predictions due to insufficient reference studies. Indeed, leather image analysis with big data can pave the way for automatic and objective analysis with accurate prediction. This study focuses on creating novel and unique leather image data, LeaData. The objective is to automatically determine species from grain surface analysis. Hence, it employs a simple, cheaper, handheld digital microscope for leather image acquisition. The magnifying parameter 47\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}
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				\begin{document}$$\times$$\end{document} captures the species-unique grain patterns distributed over the leather surface. In total, the LeaData encloses 38,172 images of four species from 137 leather samples. This big data spans leather images with theoretically ideal and practically non-ideal grain patterns. It also includes images of grain patterns varying over different body parts. Thus, the novel LeaData is an adequately larger pool of leather images with diverse behavior. The motive is to establish a smart leather species identification technique that can be easily accessible by leather specialists, customs officials, and leather product manufacturers. Hence, this paper solely creates the bigger LeaData and presents its different versions to the digital image processing and computer vision research community. This digitized source of permissible leather species helps enable digitization in leather technology for species identification. In turn, in maintaining biodiversity preservation and consumer protection.

## Full-text entities

- **Species:** Homo sapiens (human, species) [taxon 9606], Bos taurus (bovine, species) [taxon 9913], Ovis aries (domestic sheep, species) [taxon 9940]

## Full text

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## Figures

12 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11802846/full.md

## References

8 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11802846/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/PMC11802846