Single-step scanner-based digital image correlation (SB-DIC) method for large deformation mapping in rubber

The incremental digital image correlation (DIC) method has been applied in the past to determine strain in large deformation materials like rubber. This method is, however, prone to cumulative errors since the total displacement is determined by combining the displacements in numerous stages of the deformation. In this work, a method of mapping large strains in rubber using DIC in a single-step without the need for a series of deformation images is proposed. The reference subsets were deformed using deformation factors obtained from the fitted mean stress-axial stretch ratio curve obtained experimentally and the theoretical Poisson function. The deformed reference subsets were then correlated with the deformed image after loading. The recently developed scanner-based digital image correlation (SB-DIC) method was applied on dumbbell rubber specimens to obtain the in-plane displacement fields up to 350% axial strain. Comparison of the mean axial strains determined from the single-step SB-DIC method with those from the incremental SB-DIC method showed an average difference of 4.7%. Two rectangular rubber specimens containing circular and square holes were deformed and analysed using the proposed method. The resultant strain maps from the single-step SB-DIC method were compared with the results of finite element modeling (FEM). The comparison shows that the proposed single-step SB-DIC method can be used to map the strain distribution accurately in large deformation materials like rubber at much shorter time compared to the incremental DIC method.     

基于互信息的高动态范围成像系统成像质量分析

为了优化高动态范围成像系统的设计,完善地评价系统性能,将信息论应用于高动态范围成像系统中,把高动态范围成像系统看作通信系统,采用端到端的互信息量来评价高动态范围成像系统的成像质量.在COMS采样成像模型的基础上引入空间光调制器反射式硅基液晶的影响,建立了基于互信息的高动态范围成像系统数学模型.利用该模型分析了反射式硅基液晶与CMOS阵列像素数比、像素开口率、相对平移、相对旋转对系统互信息量的影响及造成系统成像质量下降的原因.通过仿真计算,分别得到了像素数比例、像素开口率大小、相对平移量、相对旋转角度与互信息量的相互关系曲线,并定量分析了这些因素变化对系统互信息量的影响程度.仿真结果表明反射式硅基液晶和COMS阵列的最佳匹配条件是：反射式硅基液晶和CMOS像素的占空比尽可能大,CMOS像素尺寸尽可能小,避免相对平移和相对旋转,反射式硅基液晶像素数和CMOS像素数之比为1:1.     

基于数学形态学的金字塔图像去噪

提出了一种自适应提升拉普拉斯金字塔变换与数学形态算子相结合的图像去噪方法.首先对图像进行分解,采用自适应提升拉普拉斯金字塔,然后利用自适应提升拉普拉斯金字塔变换后系数能量的分布特性以及尺度内和尺度间的依赖性,结合数学形态算子的特点,利用数学形态算子对变换系数进行处理,使得重要变换系数与非重要变换系数分离,分别对两个不同的子集采用不同的阈值进行处理后,再将两个子集合起来,进行逆变换重建.实验结果表明,该算法具有良好的去噪效果,同时保留了图像的细节信息,获得了较高的图像信噪比.     

基于互信息改进型脉冲耦合神经网络多值图像分割

为了自动地进行图像的多值分割,从原始图像与分割图像之间的相互关系出发,以最大互信息为优化分割目标,以互信息熵差作为一种新的分类类数判据,在对传统脉冲耦合神经网络模型改进的基础上,提出了一种基于最大互信息改进型脉冲耦合神经网络图像多值分割算法.理论分析和实验结果表明,该方法能够自动确定最佳分割迭代次数及最佳分割灰度类数,对分割图像具有良好的特征划分能力,且在分割类数较少的情况下,能较好地保持图像细节、纹理及边缘等信息,对不同图像分割准确度高,具有较强的适用性.     

Simultaneous assessment of Lagrangian strain and temperature fields by improved IR-DIC strategy

This paper focuses on the development of a novel digital image correlation strategy based on infrared imaging (IR-DIC) for realizing simultaneous assessment of Lagrangian strain and temperature fields. A major difficulty in the IR-DIC is the evolution of the thermal field during deformation that is unexpected in the image correlation. Two solutions are proposed to tackle this difficulty. The first solution is to utilize a high-pass filter to eliminate the variation part of the thermal signal, and the second solution is to employ an advanced metric, the mutual information, as the correlation criterion. Both methods are verified through a tensile test performed on a notched specimen. The estimated displacement and strain fields demonstrate well the desirable performance of the proposed methods. Thanks to the kinematic field assessment, the obtained thermal fields can be described in the Lagrangian coordinate system, thus the temperature evolution of the material points during deformation can be followed effectively.     

Application of stereo vision to the study of mixed-mode crack-tip deformations

A stereo vision is applied to evaluate crack-tip parameters for fracture specimens subjected to a mixed-mode loading (tension and shear). By using a special loading device, the applied remote loading is oriented at an angle with respect to the axis of the crack. At each loading angle, the calibrated vision system was rotated so that the axis of the crack is parallel to the horizontal or vertical axis of the image frame. At a load close to the crack initiation, the displacement field around the crack-tip region of the fracture specimen was measured relative to a specimen coordinate system located at the crack tip of the fracture specimen. During the experiment, the fracture specimen was subjected to rigid body translation and rotation. Hence, the displacement fields are affected by the rigid body translation and rotation. Using the experimentally determined displacements and the analytically determined displacements with several higher order terms being included, the stress intensity factors and the amount of rigid body translation and rotation were calculated through a least-squares fit. The effect of the rigid body motion on the measured displacements was then eliminated using the computed rigid body translation and rotation. Experimental results indicate that a K_I and K_II dominant region is observed in the corrected displacement fields.     

Magnetic resonance imaging on CO(2) miscible and immiscible displacement in oil-saturated glass beads pack

In this study, the displacement processes were observed as gaseous or supercritical CO₂ was injected into n-decane-saturated glass beads packs using a 400-MHz magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. Two-dimensional images of oil distribution in the vertical median section were obtained using a spin-echo pulse sequence. Gas channeling and viscous fingering appeared obviously in immiscible gaseous CO₂ displacement. A piston-like displacement front was detected in miscible supercritical CO₂ displacement that provided high sweep efficiency. MRI images were processed with image intensity analysis methods to obtain the saturation profiles. Final oil residual saturations and displacement coefficients were also estimated using this imaging intensity analysis. It was proved that miscible displacement can enhance the efficiency of CO₂ displacement notably. Finally, a special coreflood analysis method was applied to estimate the effects of capillary, viscosity and buoyancy based on the obtained saturation data.     

Robust visual correspondence computation using monogenic curvature phase based mutual information

Visual correspondence has been a major research topic in the fields of image registration, 3D reconstruction, and object tracking for some decades. However, due to the radiometric variations of images, conventional approaches fail to produce robust matching results. The traditional method of intensity-based mutual information performs very good for global variations between images, however, its performance degrades in the case of local radiometric variations. Monogenic curvature phase information, as an important local feature of the image, has the advantage of being robust against brightness variation. Hence, in this Letter, we propose an approach to compute the visual correspondence by coupling the advantages of mutual information and monogenic curvature phase. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can work robustly under radiometric variations.     

Measuring Microscopic Deformations with Digital Image Correlation

This paper describes a feasibility study of a high magnification full field deformation measurement system. The system consists of an image acquiring and analysis system and an optical metallurgical microscope. It can be used to determine in-plane surface deformations at magnifications up to 2000 pixels/mm. Images from an optical microscope are acquired by using a CCD camera and a digitizing board, and stored in a microcomputer. The surface displacement field is determined by using the digital image correlation method. Displacement gradients on the surface are computed after smoothing the displacement data. By performing a number of experiments and analyzing them, sources of errors in the system and their magnitudes are determined. Methods to minimize these errors are also discussed. It is realized that the system has every potential of quantifying in-plane surface displacement fields and the strains on the surfaces of specimens used in the research areas of micromechanics of solids. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

The study of fractal correlation method in the displacement measurement and its application

The classical digital speckle, or digital image, correlation method of deformation measurement is based on gray level correlation between unformed and deformed digital images. The pattern of artificial random speckles and the natural textures on some object's surfaces have fractal characteristics, and their fractal dimensions represent both gray and morph information. Furthermore, the fractal dimensions are stable feature parameters of the patterns. The digitized images of the patterns are confirmed to be also fractals. By this fact, a new method of displacement measurement is developed in the paper, based on the fractal dimensions correlation. The in-plane displacement fields of a body can be acquired. In order to verify the validity of the new method, an experiment has been designed and the results have been compared with those obtained from the classical digital image correlation method. The validity of the new method is not less than that of classical method. Further discussions about the traits and the developing vista of the method are given at the end.     

Holographic particle image velocimetry: analysis using a conjugate reconstruction geometry

Holographic recording techniques have recently been studied as a means to extend two-component, planar particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques for three-component, whole-field velocity measurements. In a similar manner to two-component PIV, three-component, holographic PIV (HPIV) uses correlation-based techniques to extract particle displacement fields from double-exposure holograms. Since a holographic image contains information concerning both the phase and the amplitude of the scattered field it is possible to correlate either the intensity or the complex amplitude. In previous work we have shown that optical methods to compute the autocorrelation of the complex amplitude are inherently more tolerant to aberrations introduced in the reconstruction process, Coupland, Halliwell, Proc. Roy. Soc. 453 (1960) (1997) 1066. In this paper we introduce a new method of holographic recording and reconstruction that allows a constant image shift to be introduced to the particle image displacement. The technique, which we call conjugate reconstruction, resolves directional ambiguity and extends the dynamic range of HPIV. The theory of this method is examined in detail and a relationship between the image and object displacement is derived. Experimental verification of the theory is presented.     

Gaussian pre-filtering for uncertainty minimization in digital image correlation using numerically-designed speckle patterns

This paper discusses the effect of pre-processing image blurring on the uncertainty of two-dimensional digital image correlation (DIC) measurements for the specific case of numerically-designed speckle patterns having particles with well-defined and consistent shape, size and spacing. Such patterns are more suitable for large measurement surfaces on large-scale specimens than traditional spray-painted random patterns without well-defined particles. The methodology consists of numerical simulations where Gaussian digital filters with varying standard deviation are applied to a reference speckle pattern. To simplify the pattern application process for large areas and increase contrast to reduce measurement uncertainty, the speckle shape, mean size and on-center spacing were selected to be representative of numerically-designed patterns that can be applied on large surfaces through different techniques (e.g., spray-painting through stencils). Such “designer patterns” are characterized by well-defined regions of non-zero frequency content and non-zero peaks, and are fundamentally different from typical spray-painted patterns whose frequency content exhibits near-zero peaks. The effect of blurring filters is examined for constant, linear, quadratic and cubic displacement fields. Maximum strains between ±250 and ±20,000 µε are simulated, thus covering a relevant range for structural materials subjected to service and ultimate stresses. The robustness of the simulation procedure is verified experimentally using a physical speckle pattern subjected to constant displacements. The stability of the relation between standard deviation of the Gaussian filter and measurement uncertainty is assessed for linear displacement fields at varying image noise levels, subset size, and frequency content of the speckle pattern. It is shown that bias error as well as measurement uncertainty are minimized through Gaussian pre-filtering. This finding does not apply to typical spray-painted patterns without well-defined particles, for which image blurring is only beneficial in reducing bias errors.     

基于互结构正则约束的红外偏振图像增强算法

为有效改善红外偏振图像视觉效应,提高红外偏振成像质量,提出了基于互结构正则约束的红外偏振图像增强算法。根据红外偏振特性描述,对Stokes参数Q分量与U分量进行加权邻域梯度融合,获得起偏特征图像,捕获目标边缘、轮廓的偏振特性;提出互结构正则约束模型,以梯度幅值相似算子联合正则约束融合结果与起偏特征图像的边缘结构相似性,及与辐射强度图像的灰度一致性,优化得到增强后的高质量红外偏振图像。实验结果表明,基于互结构正则约束的红外偏振图像增强算法,能有效提高红外偏振图像对比度与清晰度,同时提升复杂背景下人造目标边缘轮廓的偏振显著性,算法快速,工程实时性高.     

Digital image correlation using iterative least squares and pointwise least squares for displacement field and strain field measurements

Digital image correlation (DIC) method using iterative least squares algorithm (ILS) for displacement field measurement and pointwise least squares algorithm (PLS) for strain field measurement is proposed in this paper. A more general and practical intensity change model is employed with consideration of the linear intensity change of the deformed image, followed by an iterative least squares algorithm for calculating displacement field with sub-pixel accuracy. The concept of correlation function is not used in the ILS method, even though we prove that the algorithm is actually equivalent to the optimization of the sum of squared difference correlation function using improved Newton–Raphson method. Besides, different from the conventional strain estimation approaches based on smoothing the displacement fields first and followed by differentiation of the smoothed displacement fields, a simple yet effective PLS algorithm is proposed for extracting strain fields from the computed displacement fields. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed techniques is verified through numerical simulation experiments. A practical application of the algorithms to residual plastic deformation field measurement of GH4169 alloy subjected to tensile fatigue is also presented.     

Universal behaviors of mutual information in one-dimensional ${\sf J}_1-{\sf J}_2$ model

The critical behaviors of the entropy correlation effects in the one dimensional J₁-J₂ Heisenberg model are studied. It is shown that the mutual information or the correlation entropy captures the key features of information about critical fluctuations and can be used to quantify the quantum and finite-temperature phase transitions. At the critical point, the mutual information is power-law decay and the entanglement correlation length is infinite. While far away from the critical point, the mutual information is exponential decay and the entanglement correlation length is finite. A universal property of the mutual information is also found. Based on the critical behaviors of the mutual information, a new method to quantify the infinite order phase transition in the system is proposed.     

新的Cauchy-Schwarz距离函数与多模态医学图像配准

信息论测度,特别是Shannon互信息是多模态图像配准的一种重要方法,但除了互信息之外,仍然存在其它的函数来实现这一任务。对互信息、Kullback-Leibler距离和Shannon不等式之间相互关系作了分析,根据这些关系和不等式理论,提出了新的Cauchy-Schwarz距离,并将这一距离测度用于多模态医学图像的配准处理。从计算速度、噪声容忍性、测度函数图形的特点和图像窗口大小影响等几个方面,通过MR和PET医学图像的实验分析,对新的Cauchy-Schwarz距离测度和典型的Shannon信息论测度进行了分析比较。实验结果表明,新的Cauchy-Schwarz距离测度函数同样可以用于多模态图像配准,而且有着更强的噪声容忍性和更为节省的计算量。     

Microscopic 3-D displacement field measurements using digital speckle photography

A technique to measure object shape and 3-D displacement fields in micro-scale is offered by microscopic stereo digital speckle photography. The displacement of the random features that are often present on many engineering surfaces when viewed in a microscope is measured with the system, using image correlation. In this paper the equipment, physical model and calibration routines are described. The technique can be applied for sub-mm sized objects of arbitrary shape for small deformation fields. As a verifying experiment, an in-plane rotation of a flat calibration plate is presented. The expected in-plane errors are shown to be less than 0.1 μm and the corresponding out-of-plane errors about three times larger. As a pilot experiment, micro-structural paper expansion is studied, when exposed to humidity. The scaling properties of the microscope as well as the sampling criteria and reliability of the system are discussed in detail.     

Strain field denoising for digital image correlation using a regularized cost-function

In digital image correlation (DIC), the widely used forward-additive Newton–Raphson (FA-NR) algorithm and the recently introduced equivalent but more efficient inverse-compositional Gauss–Newton (IC-GN) algorithm are capable of providing both displacements and displacement gradients (strains) for each calculation point. However, the obtained displacement gradients are seriously corrupted by various noises, and for this reason these directly computed strains are usually considered as useless information and therefore discarded. To extract strain distributions more accurately, much research efforts have been dedicated to how to smooth and differentiate the noisy displacement fields using appropriate numerical approaches. In this contribution, contrary to these existing strain estimation approaches, a novel and alternative strain estimation approach, based on denoising the noisy strain fields obtained by FA-NR or IC-GN algorithm using a regularized cost-function, is proposed. The effectiveness and practicality of the proposed strain estimation technique is carefully examined using both computer-simulated images with imposed homogeneous and inhomogeneous deformation, and experimentally obtained images. Experimental results reveal that the strains obtained by the proposed method are comparable to those determined by post-processing of the displacement fields using conventional pointwise least squares strain estimation approach.     

Use of a Phase Reference for Field Mapping with Amplitude Images at Low Field

We present a method to obtain MRI amplitude images that can picture the magnetic field due to arbitrary shaped magnetized objects. The method employees the gradient recalled echo sequence and two sets of data obtained in separate experiments, one of which provides a phase reference image making it possible to eliminate the effect of theB₀field inhomogeneities. The final magnitude images have a good signal-to-noise even at low fields, and provide qualitative as well as quantitative information about the magnetic field produced by the ferromagnetic object. As an example the method is applied to study the field produced by a small metal piece in a 500-G scanner, and the experimental results are compared with numerical simulations.     

Image displacement based on phase-encoded reference joint fractional transform correlator

In order to utilize the space of an input plane efficiently and make the optical structure more flexible, an image displacement measurement based on phase-encoded reference joint fractional transform correlator (PER-JFrTC) is proposed. We use a random phase mask to encode the reference image and overlay it with the target image forming the input image. Joint power spectrum (JPS) of the input image is obtained by Fourier transform and the resultant is encoded by the same phase mask. Then a fractional Fourier transform with an order p is applied to the phase-encoded JPS (PJPS), resulting in a correlation output with a sharp cross-correlation peak, which includes the displacement information between the reference and the target image. Contrast to displacement measurement based on traditional joint transform correlator (JTC), PER-JFrTC can use the space of the input plane efficiently and reduces the influence of the auto-correlation. Also the position of cross-correlation peak can be fixed arbitrarily according to the fractional order p as well as the optical set-up can be more flexible and easier to implement. Results based on digital computation show that PER-JFrTC could detect the displacement accurately and verify our proposal. A possible optical set-up is suggested.