Spatial DIC Errors due to Pattern-Induced Bias and Grey Level Discretization

Digital image correlation (DIC) is an optical metrology method widely used in experimental mechanics for full-field shape, displacement and strain measurements. The required strain resolution for engineering applications of interest mandates DIC to have a high image displacement matching accuracy, on the order of 1/100th of a pixel, which necessitates an understanding of DIC errors. In this paper, we examine two spatial bias terms that have been almost completely overlooked. They cause a persistent offset in the matching of image intensities and thus corrupt DIC results. We name them pattern-induced bias (PIB), and intensity discretization bias (IDB). We show that the PIB error occurs in the presence of an undermatched shape function and is primarily dictated by the underlying intensity pattern for a fixed displacement field and DIC settings. The IDB error is due to the quantization of the gray level intensity values in the digital camera. In this paper we demonstrate these errors and quantify their magnitudes both experimentally and with synthetic images.

     

Error Assessment in Stereo-based Deformation Measurements

Increasing interest in the use of digital image correlation (DIC) for full-field surface shape and deformation measurements has led to an on-going need for both the development of theoretical formulae capable of providing quantitative confidence margins and controlled experiments for validation of the theoretical predictions. In the enclosed work, a series of stereo vision experiments are performed in a manner that provides sufficient information for direct comparison with theoretical predictions using formulae developed in Part I. Specifically, experiments are performed to obtain appropriate optimal estimates and the uncertainty margins for the image locations/displacements, 3-D locations/displacements and strains when using the method of subset-based digital image correlation for image matching. The uncertainty of locating the 3-D space points using subset-based pattern matching is estimated by using theoretical formulae developed in Part I and the experimentally defined confidence margins for image locations. Finally, the uncertainty in strains is predicted using formulae that involves both the variance and covariance of intermediate variables during the strain calculation process. Results from both theoretical predictions and the experimental work show the feasibility and accuracy of the predictive formulae for estimating the uncertainty in the stereo-based deformation measurements.     

Simultaneous Measurement of Plate Natural Frequencies and Vibration Mode Shapes Using ESPI

The natural frequencies and vibration mode shapes of flat plates are simultaneously measured using ESPI. The method involves measuring the surface shape of a vibrating plate at high frame rate using a modified Michelson interferometer and high-speed camera. The vibration is excited here by impact; white (random) noise could alternatively be used. Fourier analysis of the acquired data gives the natural frequencies and associated mode shapes. The analytical procedure used has the advantage that it simultaneously identifies full-field quantitative images of all vibration modes with frequencies up to half the sampling frequency. In comparison, the ESPI time-averaging and the traditional Chladni methods both require that the plate be excited at each natural frequency to allow separate qualitative measurements of the associated mode shapes. The Instrumented Hammer method and Laser Doppler Vibrometry give quantitative measurements but require sequential sampling of individual points on the test surface to provide full-field results. Example ESPI measurements are presented to illustrate the use and capabilities of the proposed plate natural frequency and mode shape measurement method.     

Scanning-Digital Image Correlation for Moving and Temporally Deformed Surfaces in Scanning Imaging Mode

Background

Images from scanning electron microscopes, transmission electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes have been widely used in digital image correlation methods to obtain accurate full-field deformation profiles of tested objects and investigate the object’s deformation mechanism. However, because of the raster-scanning imaging mode used in microscopic observation equipment, the images obtained from these instruments can only be used for quasi-static displacement measurements; otherwise, spurious displacements and strains may be introduced into the deformation results if these scanning microscopic images are used directly in general digital image correlation calculations for moving and temporally deformed surfaces.

Objective

Realizing kinematic parameter and dynamic deformation measurements on a scanning electron microscope platform.

Methods

Establishing a scanning imaging model of moving and temporally deformed objects that contains motion and deformation equations, a scanning equation and an intensity invariance assumption for small deformations. Then proposing a scanning-digital image correlation (S-DIC) method based on combing the characteristics of the scanning imaging mode with digital image correlation.

Results

Quantitatively investigating the effects of the spurious displacements and strains introduced when using scanning images to represent moving and temporally deformed surfaces in the measurement results. Numerical simulations verify that the accuracy of the S-DIC method is 10^?2pix for the displacement, 10^?4 for the strain, 10^?4pix/s for the velocity and 10^?6s^?1 for the strain rate. Experiments also show that the proposed S-DIC method is effective. Conclusions: The results of this work demonstrate the utility of S-DIC on the field of microscopic dynamic measurement.

     

Full-Field Surface 3D Shape and Displacement Measurements Using an Unfocused Plenoptic Camera

Full-field surface 3D shape and displacement measurements using a single commercial unfocused plenoptic camera (Lytro Illum) are reported in this work. Before measurements, the unfocused plenoptic camera is calibrated with two consecutive steps, including lateral calibration and depth calibration. Each raw image of a checkerboard pattern recorded by Lytro Illum is first extracted to an array of sub-aperture images (SAIs), and the center sub-aperture images (CSAIs) at diverse poses are used for lateral calibration to determine intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. The parallax maps between the CSAI and the remaining SAIs at each pose are then determined for depth parameters estimation using depth calibration. Furthermore, a newly developed physical-based depth distortion model is established to correct the serious distortion of the depth field. To realize shape and deformation measurements, the raw images of a test sample with speckle patterns premade on its surface are captured by Lytro Illum and extracted to arrays of SAIs. The parallax maps between the CSAI and the target SAIs are obtained using subset-based digital image correlation. Based on the pre-computed intrinsic and depth parameters and the disparity map, the full-field surface 3D shape and displacement of a test object are finally determined. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed approach are evaluated by a set of experiments involving the shape reconstruction of a cylinder, in-plane and out-of-plane displacement measurements of a flat plate and 3D full-field displacement measurements of a cantilever beam. The preliminary results indicate that the proposed method is expected to become a novel approach for full-field surface 3D shape and displacement measurements.     

Phase discrimination method for simultaneous two-phase separation in time-resolved stereo PIV measurements

A phase discrimination method for two-phase PIV is presented that is capable of simultaneously separating the two phases from time-resolved stereoscopic PIV images taken in a particle-laden jet. The technique developed expands on previous work done by Khalitov and Longmire (Exp Fluids 32:252–268, 2002), where by means of image processing techniques, a raw two-phase PIV image can be separated into two single-phase images according to particle size and intensity distributions. The technique is expanded through the use of three new image processing algorithms to separate particles of similar size (up to an order of magnitude better than published work) for fields of view much larger than previously considered. It also addresses the known problem of noisy background images produced by high-speed CMOS cameras, which makes the particle detection and separation from the noisy background difficult, through the use of a novel fast Fourier transform background filter.     

使用单彩色相机的单相机三维数字图像相关方法

介绍了一种基于单个彩色相机的新型全靶面、单相机三维数字图像相关(3D-DIC)方法。借助于设计巧妙的颜色分光光路,被测物体表面图像可以通过两条不同的光路达到相机靶面,采集的标定靶和实验件表面的彩色图像可以分离得到蓝色和红色子图像。通过使用3D-DIC分析标定靶和实验件表面分离后的蓝色和红色子图像,可以获得物体表面的三维形貌和变形。形貌测量、面内和离面平移、以及静动态三维变形实验验证了该单彩色相机3D-DIC方法的有效性和测量精准度。由于可避免双相机同步,且能实现无分辨率损失的全靶面三维形貌和变形测量,本文方法在需要实现瞬态位移和变形测量的爆炸、冲击、振动等领域中具有广阔重要的应用前景。     

Fast, Robust and Accurate Digital Image Correlation Calculation Without Redundant Computations

High-efficiency and high-accuracy deformation analysis using digital image correlation (DIC) has become increasingly important in recent years, considering the ongoing trend of using higher resolution digital cameras and common requirement of processing a large sequence of images recorded in a dynamic testing. In this work, to eliminate the redundant computations involved in conventional DIC method using forward additive matching strategy and classic Newton–Raphson (FA-NR) algorithm without sacrificing its sub-pixel registration accuracy, we proposed an equivalent but more efficient DIC method by combining inverse compositional matching strategy and Gauss-Newton (IC-GN) algorithm for fast, robust and accurate full-field displacement measurement. To this purpose, first, an efficient IC-GN algorithm, without the need of re-evaluating and inverting Hessian matrix in each iteration, is introduced to optimize the robust zero-mean normalized sum of squared difference (ZNSSD) criterion to determine the desired deformation parameters of each interrogated subset. Then, an improved reliability-guided displacement tracking strategy is employed to achieve further speed advantage by automatically providing accurate and complete initial guess of deformation for the IC-GN algorithm implemented on each calculation point. Finally, an easy-to-implement interpolation coefficient look-up table approach is employed to avoid the repeated calculation of bicubic interpolation at sub-pixel locations. With the above improvements, redundant calculations involved in various procedures (i.e. initial guess of deformation, sub-pixel displacement registration and sub-pixel intensity interpolation) of conventional DIC method are entirely eliminated. The registration accuracy and computational efficiency of the proposed DIC method are carefully tested using numerical experiments and real experimental images. Experimental results verify that the proposed DIC method using IC-GN algorithm and the existing DIC method using classic FA-NR algorithm generate similar results, but the former is about three to five times faster. The proposed reliability-guided IC-GN algorithm is expected to be a new standard full-field displacement tracking algorithm in DIC.     

Color Stereo-Digital Image Correlation Method Using a Single 3CCD Color Camera

This paper presents a novel color stereo-digital image correlation (stereo-DIC) method using a single 3CCD color camera for full-field shape, motion, and deformation measurements without any sacrifice of the camera sensor spatial resolution. With the aid of a specially designed color separation device using a beam splitter and two optical bandpass filters, images of blue and red colors are simultaneously recorded by the 3CCD camera from two different optical paths. The blue and red channel sub-images extracted from the recorded color images can be analyzed using the regular stereo-DIC algorithm to obtain the full-field three dimensional (3D) information of a test object surface. The effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed technique are demonstrated by a series of real shape, in-plane and out-of-plane translation, and 3D deformation tests.     

An Improved Digital Image Correlation Calculation in the Case of Substantial Lighting Variation

In the last decade, digital image correlation (DIC) has become the most widely used non-contact technique for measuring full-field motion and deformation in image sequences. As permanent hardware improvements make it possible to readily obtain digital images with higher and higher resolutions at ever-increasing frame rates, the efficiency of image registration methods is becoming increasingly important. Another aspect of this problem is the desire to improve the accuracy of these methods, which in general implies additional computational time. This problem is addressed by applying the inverse compositional Gauss-Newton (IC-GN) algorithm, which is modified to include the parametric sum of squared differences (PSSD) correlation criterion. However, the classical IC-GN algorithm with the sum of squared differences (SSD) correlation criterion cannot be used in cases in which lighting variations are of considerable importance. In this paper, a solution to this disadvantage is presented. The lighting variation is directly included in the IC-GN minimization procedure, which reduces the additional calculation time. Moreover, this IC-GN algorithm does not need to re-evaluate and invert the Hessian matrix. This results in a more computationally efficient algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is insensitive to the linear intensity variation in the target image; consequently, it has a faster convergence rate than the IC-GN algorithm with the zero-mean normalized sum of squared differences (ZNSSD) correlation criterion. As a result, computational time can be reduced by up to 30% in the case of convergence condition ??=0.001. Owing to the above mentioned advantages of the proposed IC-GN algorithm, it could become a new standard for efficient and robust full-field displacement tracking in image sequences with varying lighting intensity.     

Full-field bubbly flow velocity measurements by digital image pulsed laser velocimetry

Digital Pulsed Laser Velocimetry (DPLV) is a full-field, two dimensional, noninvasive, quantitative flow visualization technique. The technique described here includes the novel use of direct digitization of two-phase bubbly flow images using a high resolution imaging system. The image data is stored for further analysis by new image processing and analysis software developed for flow experiments.In the technique, ten consecutive frames of data separated by a time increment of 150 ms, are recorded. Each of these ten frames contains the images of bubbles at that one instant of time. A program smooths the instantaneous image and calculates bubble parameters. Another program matches the bubbles from each of the frames into tracks of bubbles through time. This program uses a statistical technique to determine the best possible path of the bubbles.The ability of pulsed laser velocimetry to capture simultaneous and quantitative rather than qualitative information along with these image processing techniques gives the experimentalist a powerful tool to perform flow visualization and analysis.     

Hole-Drilling Residual Stress Measurement with Artifact Correction Using Full-Field DIC

A full-field, multi-axial computation technique is described for determining residual stresses using the hole-drilling method with DIC. The computational method takes advantage of the large quantity of data available from full-field images to ameliorate the effect of modest deformation sensitivity of DIC measurements. It also provides uniform residual stress sensitivity in all in-plane directions and accounts for artifacts that commonly occur within experimental measurements. These artifacts include image shift, stretch and shear. The calculation method uses a large fraction of the pixels available within the measured images and requires minimal human guidance in its operation. The method is demonstrated using measurements where residual stresses are made on a microscopic scale with hole drilling done using a Focused Ion Beam – Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB-SEM). This is a very challenging application because SEM images are subject to fluctuations that can introduce large artifacts when using DIC. Several series of measurements are described to illustrate the operation and effectiveness of the proposed residual stress computation technique.     

A vision-based hybrid particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) technique using a modified cascade correlation peak-finding method

A novel technique for particle tracking velocimetry is presented in this paper to overcome the issue of overlapping particle images encountered in the flows with high particle density or under volumetric illumination conditions. To achieve this goal, algorithms for particle identification and tracking are developed based on current methods and validated with both synthetic and experimental image sets. The results from synthetic image tests show that the particle identification algorithm is able to resolve overlapped particle images up to 50?% under noisy conditions, while keeping the root mean square peak location error under 0.07?pixels. The algorithm is also robust to the size changes up to a size ratio of 5. The tracking method developed from a classic computer vision matching algorithm is capable of capturing a velocity gradient up to 0.3 while maintaining the error under 0.2?pixels. Sensitivity tests were performed to describe the optimum conditions for the technique in terms of particle image density, particle image sizes and velocity gradients, also its sensitivity to errors of the PIV results that guide the tracking process. The comparison with other existing tracking techniques demonstrates that this technique is able to resolve more vectors out of a dense particle image field.     

Intensity Capping: a simple method to improve cross-correlation PIV results

A common source of error in particle image velocimetry (PIV) is the presence of bright spots within the images. These bright spots are characterized by grayscale intensities much greater than the mean intensity of the image and are typically generated by intense scattering from seed particles. The displacement of bright spots can dominate the cross-correlation calculation within an interrogation window, and may thereby bias the resulting velocity vector. An efficient and easy-to-implement image-enhancement procedure is described to improve PIV results when bright spots are present. The procedure, called Intensity Capping, imposes a user-specified upper limit to the grayscale intensity of the images. The displacement calculation then better represents the displacement of all particles in an interrogation window and the bias due to bright spots is reduced. Four PIV codes and a large set of experimental and simulated images were used to evaluate the performance of Intensity Capping. The results indicate that Intensity Capping can significantly increase the number of valid vectors from experimental image pairs and reduce displacement error in the analysis of simulated images. A comparison with other PIV image-enhancement techniques shows that Intensity Capping offers competitive performance, low computational cost, ease of implementation, and minimal modification to the images.     

Diffuse mode bifurcation of soil causing convection-like shear investigated by group-theoretic image analysis

Diffuse mode bifurcation of soil under plane-strain compression test is shown, by means of an image analysis based on group-theoretic bifurcation theory, to trigger convection-like shear and to precede shear band formation. First digital photos of Toyoura sand specimens are processed by PIV (particle image velocimetry) to gather digitized images of deformation. Next bifurcation from a uniform state is detected by expanding these images into the double Fourier series and finding a predominant harmonic diffuse bifurcation mode based on that theory. This harmonic bifurcation mode, which is the mixture of a few harmonic functions, expresses complex convection-like shear. Last bifurcation from a non-uniform state is detected by decomposing each image into a few images with different symmetries to extract non-harmonic diffuse bifurcation modes. Diffuse modes of bifurcation, which hitherto were hidden behind predominant uniform compressive deformation, have thus been made transparent by virtue of the group-theoretic image analysis proposed. A possible course of deformation suggested herein is the evolution of diffuse mode bifurcation with a convection-like bifurcation mode breaking uniformity and symmetry, followed by the formation of shear bands through localization.     

Velocity measurements of flow through a step stenosis using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a versatile noninvasive tool for achieving full-field quantitative visualization of complex fluid flows. The MRI signal results from the interaction of radio-frequency (RF) pulses with nuclear spins exposed to a strong static magnetic field. The two main techniques of MRI velocimetry are time-of-flight and phase contrast techniques. Time-of- flight techniques involve tagging and tracking a material volume of fluid, whereas phase contrast techniques use magnetic field gradients to encode velocity information into the phase of the MRI signal. In this study, both techniques are used to probe the pressure-driven steady flow of water in a pipe with a step stenosis. The velocity measurements were then compared with computational results obtained using the FIDAP software package. The experiments show that the phase contrast method gives more accurate results, with 90% of the measurements within 10% of the local computational fluid dynamics (CFD) velocity predictions at Re = 100 and 94% of the measurements within 10% of the local CFD predictions at Re = 258. Although the time-of-flight experiments were not as accurate, they provide a good qualitative image of the flow field. Sources of the discrepancies between the MRI data and the CFD results are also discussed, including acceleration and spin flow-through artifacts. Received: 7 April 1999/Accepted: 20 December 1999     

Study on the Influence of Waves on Coastal Diffusion Using Image Analysis

A series of novel image analysis techniques have been used to study surf-zone hydrodynamics taking advantage of recent advances in digital processing of images taken from video recordings of the sea surface near the coast. The use of image analysis allows the estimation of both spatial and temporal characteristics of wave fields, surface circulation and mixing in the surf zone. The dispersion of blobs of dye released at different distances from the coastline under very different sea conditions is used to measure surface eddy diffusivities. A preliminary set of field measurements were done in the Ebro Delta where the methodology was tested. Further experiments have been performed at Vilanova, Spain and Recife, Brazil.There is an increase of diffusivity with wave height but only if the wave Reynolds number, Rw, is greater than 10³. No such trend is observed for Rw greater than 10⁶. The other important factors are wind speed and tidal and longshore currents.