The fabric defect automatic inspection is one of the technical problems that the textile industry is facing. This paper brings forward a approach for textile flaw automatic detection based on optimal Gabor filters. At first the niche genetic algorithm is employed to attain the parameters of the optimal Gabor filters and segmentation threshold based on.the feature of the unflawed textile

and then apply the optimal Gabor filter and threshold on the fabric image to achieve the resnlts. Meanwhile

the shape characteristics of defects are also achieved from the distribution of minimums of response matrix. The approach is used to detect the flaw of cord fabrics. The test results demonstrate this method is efficient and practicable

and also characterized by wide applied range

strong capability of recognition and high testing speed.