Multivariate Image and Texture Analysis for Film-Coated Tablets Elegance Assessment

The use of multivariate image and texture analysis is proposed in this study to quantitatively characterize the elegance of film-coated tablets. Four unsupervised metrics are developed to quantify both the color uniformity of tablet faces/bands and the erosion level inside and outside the tablet logo. Latent variable modeling is used to regress the measured elegance against coating operating conditions in order to investigate the driving forces acting on the system, consistently with the quality-by-design framework promoted by the Food and Drug Administration.