Simple and Effective Techniques for Automatic Fish Species Classification Using Image Processing and Deep Learning

The advancement of automation in the fish industry, a critical segment of the food sector, has become increasingly relevant in light of the growing global population and the impacts of climate change and global warming. Enhancing productivity through automation is essential to mitigate the looming threat of food scarcity. In this context, automatic fish classification using computer vision has garnered significant attention, with various studies exploring both complex and simple approaches. While complex methods have shown promising results, simpler approaches often fall short in performance. This study proposes a simple yet effective method that highlights key distinguishing features of fish—namely, body shape and scale patterns—for species classification. The Lanczos resampling technique is employed to crop, resize, and focus on the features, enabling a lightweight deep learning model to effectively learn and classify fish species. With the right conceptual framework, appropriate feature extraction techniques, and an efficient deep learning architecture, the proposed method addresses the classification challenge in a straightforward yet effective manner. Experimental evaluations using the Fish‐Pak dataset, comprising six aquaculture fish species, and the KMITL Fish dataset, containing eight species, demonstrate the effectiveness of the method, achieving accuracy rates of 97.16% and 98.59%, respectively.