Once the individual fragments in the images have been delineated, the next step is to use characteristics of the fragments to calculate their size distribution. These characteristics include the area and dimensions of each fragment and the area of the non-particle regions (black areas in the previous figures).

The second step is to determine a realistic distribution for the fine material. Two options for the distribution within the fines are available in Split-Desktop, a Schumann distribution and a Rosin-Rammler distribution. Each of these distributions has two unknown parameters and these parameters are determined from two known points in the size distribution, one point at the finesize and the other at 1.5 times the finesize. Figure 5 shows the size distribution calculated from the muck pile image shown in Figure 1 using the Schumann distribution assumption for fines. The part of the size distribution curve represented by the fines assumption is shown in gray.