Neural Grader AI Lumber Grading Scanners

How it works

Cameras, lasers and a grading engine on one frame

A Neural Grader scanner sits over the conveyor and reads each board as it passes. Four parts do the reading, and the software behind them turns what they find into an instruction for the machine downstream.

The cameras

Industrial cameras capture each board from several angles, on 2 or 4 faces, and send high-resolution images in real time at line speed. Neural Grader says the vision system adjusts for surface texture, grain direction and board movement, on rough green or dry lumber.

The lighting

Each scanner carries its own LED arrays with diffuse and directional control and a color rendering index above 90. The lighting adjusts automatically to the species and the board type, so shadows, glare and uneven light do not get read as defects.

The lasers

Laser triangulation modules measure width, thickness, length and warp (bow, twist, crook and cup) to plus or minus 0.2 mm, about 0.008 in, at up to 300 boards a minute. The modules are enclosed against dust, and their measurements feed both the grading and the cutting decisions.

The grading engine

The images go to Neural Grader's own deep learning engine, trained on more than 100,000 boards of 15+ species from 10+ countries, and it keeps learning. It reads sound, unsound and encased knots, splits, checks and shake, pin and worm holes, pitch pockets, rot and decay, stain and discoloration, wane and bark pockets, and grain pattern and direction. Neural Grader's notes on the Compact add the color defects cameras find hard, such as heart and blue stain, and say the system ignores marks left by chains, slats and rain.

It grades to NHLA rules, European standards, JAS requirements or a customer's own rules, and can be set for species-specific criteria, a particular end use, maximum yield or sorting by value.

Built for the mill floor

By Neural Grader's account every component is engineered for dusty, vibration-prone, high-throughput plants. Processing runs in real time on an industrial computer with GPU acceleration and a redundant architecture. The scanners diagnose themselves and need little from an operator, and the software is modular, with an operator interface, remote monitoring, data analytics and ERP integration.

Three scanners, chosen by how your boards travel

Which model you need comes down to the conveyor: whether boards cross the scan point sideways or end-on, and how many run side by side.

NG Transversal

For high-speed transversal lines carrying green or kiln-dried lumber. It scans geometry and appearance on 2 or 4 sides at up to 300 boards a minute, takes boards up to 1,000 mm wide (about 39 in) and needs 1,000 mm of clearance above the conveyor. The enclosure is sized to your conveyor width, and the 2 face version takes the maximum board width plus 200 mm (about 8 in) of line length.

NG Linear Compact

For linear conveyors running up to 3 boards side by side. It scans 2 or 4 sides at up to 300 boards a minute in about 600 mm (24 in) of line length, which is why Neural Grader aims it at retrofits: lines where older equipment, the conveyor design or the building leave no room for a scanner. It launched in May 2025 for sawmills and component producers short on space, and in Neural Grader's words it has the same capabilities as the larger models:

• 2 or 4 side scanning, with several boards handled in parallel when it scans 2 sides
• Sub-millimeter detection of worm holes, pin knots, checks and shake on rough (green, kiln-dried or air-dried) or surfaced lumber, plus wane, and color defects such as heart and blue stain
• Sorting set up around particular defects, dimensions, grain or color variation, to the customer's own grading requirements
• Connections to printers, sorters, trimmers and edgers, and to the rest of the Neural Grader software

It grades boules and lumber, whether unedged, edged or surfaced, and it runs on component lines with a rip saw, a crosscut or both.

NG Linear XXL

For linear conveyors running more than 3 boards in parallel. It scans geometry and appearance on the top and bottom faces of up to 8 boards at once, takes boards up to 1,500 mm wide (about 59 in), needs 1,000 mm of clearance and is built to the width of your conveyor, with about 600 mm of line length.

All three connect to a trimmer, an edger, a sorting line and a printer over Ethernet, an API, a PLC or Modbus, and run on 110 to 220 V.

The software, module by module

The scanner does the reading. The decisions come from Neural Grader's software platform, which is built from the modules below.

Geometric measurement

Thickness, width, length, bow, twist, crook and cup on every board, with out-of-tolerance flags and real-time alerts.

Defect detection

Sub-millimeter detection of visual defects: pith, splits, bark, sound and unsound knots, decay and rot, shake, checks, pin knots, worm holes, mineral, stain, heart, blue stain, sap, mold, wane and skip marks, along with other manufacturing errors. It is trained on the main European and North American species and works on green, kiln-dried and surfaced lumber.

Grading

NHLA, European and custom grading rules on boules, unedged and edged lumber, with a grading rules simulator for testing and tuning the rules.

Trimming and edging optimizer

For sawmills. It works out the trim and edge cuts that give each board its highest value and can run most trimming and edging operations. Instructions go straight to the machine, or to the operator where the machine is not automated.

Components production optimizer

For component producers. It works out rip and crosscut solutions for yield, takes production priorities on dimensions or other features of the parts into account, and instructs the machine or the operator the same way. These cutting lines are one of Neural Grader's main focuses for 2026, and its 4 side vision now lets a plant run variable widths within the same production batch.

Sorting

Sorts by grade, length, width, thickness, species, color and grain, and works with automated sorting equipment. Neural Grader also offers it to mills with species mix-ups between batches.

Printing and board ID

Prints an ID and the grade on each board, plus anything else the customer needs on it, and works with most industrial printers. With every board numbered, a claim or a supply-chain question can be traced back to the board.

Production reporting

Live dashboards and historical reports on the volume and value of production by grade and species, broken down by dimension, defect type and grade, with figures per shift, order, sort and bundle down to the single board. The reports export.

Bundle management

Tracks boards into bundles, keeps the tally, generates and prints bundle tags and syncs with ERP or warehouse tools. Neural Grader calls the board-to-bundle tracking Smart Bundle Technology.

Where it fits: four kinds of plant

Neural Grader sells into four groups, and the pitch to each is a little different.

Hardwood sawmills

Measurement, grading, edging and trimming for North American and European hardwoods, to NHLA rules or your own. For sawmills Neural Grader aims at lower grading costs, more value per board, fewer claims, better sorts and a faster line, using deformation measurement, sub-millimeter defect detection, a grading engine for edged and unedged lumber with simulation tools, trim and rip instructions, species sorting, board IDs, bundle tallies and tags, and reporting down to the board.

Softwood sawmills

Measurement, grading, edging, trimming and species sorting. Neural Grader describes this work in terms of European softwoods and said in May 2026 that it was now also taking on softwood customers, so on a North American softwood line, ask for specifics on your species.

Component, furniture, joinery and glued-product plants

Running the rip saw and crosscut lines, with the aim of lower labor cost, higher yield, fewer quality problems and a faster line. Detection covers shake, worm holes, pin knots, stain, rot and heart on rough green and dry hardwood and softwood, and boards are tracked into bundles.

Lamella producers for multilayer flooring

A lamella grading engine built for multilayer solid wood flooring, with rip and crosscut optimization and each lamella tracked into its bundle. On an engineered flooring line, this is the use case to ask about.

What Neural Grader says it delivers

Neural Grader puts the benefits under four headings: consistent grading, and so fewer claims; throughput of up to 300 boards a minute with several boards handled at once; less dependence on skilled graders, who are hard to find; and more value per board from optimized yield and cuttings. It describes its mission as making the wood industry more profitable by getting more revenue out of the same wood, and it treats the installation as the first step of the work with a customer.

None of that comes with a published yield or payback figure. Ask for numbers from a line like yours before building a case on them.

Installation and the space it needs

The scanners are built as modules, which according to Neural Grader is what gets installation on most existing production lines down to about four days; its use-case pages put it at 3 to 4. For the Compact it gives 4 days in total with the line stopped for 1 of them, and a single day down can go on a weekend. The Compact arrives ready to run and takes remote updates. Neural Grader publishes no prices.

On space, the Transversal needs the board width plus 200 mm of line length and the two linear models about 600 mm. The Compact took 550 mm at Pomeranian Timber.

One line in detail

Neural Grader has published the line details for its installation at Pomeranian Timber, one of Poland's leading beech producers. A Linear Compact runs on the grading line for steamed, kiln-dried, rough unedged beech: boards of variable width up to 800 mm (about 31 in) on a roller conveyor at 1.5 m/s (about 295 ft/min), one board graded every 4 seconds. The scanner takes up 550 mm (about 22 in) of the line, and Neural Grader added vibration-correction software for the roller conveyor.

It is a hard job for a camera. Steaming leaves color gradients that can hide a defect or invent one, and red heart, the defect that sets the grade on that species, looks different from one board to the next. Pomeranian is also the first site running Smart Bundle Technology, which follows each board from the scanner into its bundle so the customer can trace it.

Who builds it

Neural Grader is part of the Fordaq group, which also runs Fordaq.com, a B2B marketplace for wood products started 25 years ago, and Tally Express, a bundle measurement app. The Nieuwenhuys brothers founded it: Benoit Nieuwenhuys is CEO and Bruno Nieuwenhuys is CTO. The chairman, Sampsa Auvinen, has more than 30 years of executive leadership in the forest industry and chairs the European Confederation of Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois). The scanner launched at LIGNA 2025, and Neural Grader says it works with all equipment manufacturers.

Scoping a Neural Grader for your line

Talk to Mike about Neural Grader for your line. The first conversation is about the line more than the scanner: what species and products you run, whether boards pass the scan point lengthwise or crosswise, how many run side by side, how much conveyor you can give up, and what the machines downstream can do with a solution. Neural Grader says it fits the scanning and software to the line rather than the other way round, and starts every project from the customer's line and goals. That is the right order.

The machines it hands decisions to are the same kinds this site covers: board edgers, rip lines, optimized crosscut and bin sorters. Whether a particular machine can take instructions directly is a scoping question. If you are weighing Neural Grader against the EBI Inspector range, bring that into the same call.