Reduction of Noise‐Induced Bias in Displacement Estimation by Linear Off‐Pixel Digital Image Correlation

Abstract: A linear digital image correlation algorithm is proposed to eliminate noise‐induced bias in one‐dimensional translation estimation using noisy images. The algorithm uses linear interpolation for both initial and current images at off‐pixel positions and solves directly the displacement parameter by minimizing a sum‐of‐squared‐differences coefficient. Both analytical results and numerical simulations using synthetic image sets show that there is indeed no noise‐induced bias in the displacement estimation using the proposed algorithm if the off‐pixel positions in both images are chosen properly according to the relative displacement between two images. When the displacement is only known initially within a range of ±0.5 pixels from the actual displacement, an iterative procedure using the algorithm is able to obtain the displacement estimation with a residual bias that converges to the noiseless subpixel approximation bias. A further refinement of the off‐pixel analysis algorithm will be needed so the remaining residual bias due to subpixel approximation can also be significantly reduced.     

基于机器视觉的零件特征尺寸提取算法

目的复杂型面零件功能特征多样,结构尺寸呈现空间分布,传统的手工检测方法无法满足检测工作要求,为提升检测效率,提出一种基于机器视觉的非接触式测量方法。方法使用CCD相机采集图像信息,对图像进行分析处理,获得圆的亚像素边缘轮廓,再通过最小二乘法进行圆拟合求得圆的参数方程,最后利用几何距离公式求得像素距离。通过系统标定求出像素当量,由像素当量最终求得圆与圆之间的实际距离。结果最小二乘拟合圆亚像素边缘检测算法稳定,抗噪性能较好,算法的分辨率为0.001个像素。结论该方法可正确、方便、有效地对零件进行尺寸测量。     

基于信号采样的相位相关法亚像素级配准方法研究

为解决小模数齿轮视觉测量中凸显的工业相机高空间分辨率与大视场相互制约的矛盾,对基于相位相关原理的亚像素级配准方法进行了研究。分析相位相关法在应用于具有亚像素位移量的图像时,互功率谱傅里叶逆变换后产生主峰副峰的原因及两者幅值与亚像素位移量的对应关系,将该方法用于小模数齿轮图像配准,实验结果表明:该方法的配准误差小于0.002 pixel;在忽略非相关区域影响的情况下,通过误差分析得出该方法存在的周期为1 pixel的非累积性误差,其中由函数近似引入的误差小于5×10^-8pixel。     

High resolution digital image correlation using proper generalized decomposition: PGD‐DIC

A new method is proposed to measure the finite element (FE) displacement field from a deformed image in comparison with a reference one. In opposition to standard FE approaches, the unknown displacement is sought as a sum of products of separated dimension functions. With the problems in each dimension being uncoupled, the method involves only one‐dimensional meshes and one‐dimensional problems. An algorithm that builds successive best rank‐one approximations is proposed and integrated into the nonlinear iterations of the correlation problem. Although the method can be applied to spaces of any dimension, this paper focuses on two‐dimensional images. Many synthetic examples are provided to evaluate the performance of the method. In addition, it is shown that, even with this separated representation, the introduction of a regularization operator is convenient. The latter makes it possible to perform a pixel‐wise measure with huge computational savings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A New Procedure for Mode I Fracture Characterization of Cement‐Based Materials

Fracture characterization under mode I loading of a cement‐based material using the single‐edge‐notched beam loaded in tree‐point‐bending was performed. A new method based on beam theory and crack equivalent concept is proposed to evaluate the Resistance‐curve, which is essential to determine fracture toughness with accuracy. The method considers the existence of a stress relief region in the vicinity of the crack, dispensing crack length monitoring during experiments. A numerical validation was performed by finite element analysis considering a bilinear cohesive damage model. Experimental tests were performed in order to validate the numerical procedure. Digital image correlation technique was used to measure the specimen displacement with accuracy and without interference. Excellent agreement between numerical and experimental load–displacement curves was obtained, which validates the procedure.     

A dual domain decomposition method for finite element digital image correlation

The computational burden associated to finite element based digital image correlation methods is mostly due to the inversion of finite element systems and to image interpolations. A non‐overlapping dual domain decomposition method is here proposed to rationalise the computational cost of high resolution finite element digital image correlation measurements when dealing with large images. It consists in splitting the global mesh into submeshes and the reference and deformed states images into subset images. Classic finite element digital image correlation formulations are first written in each subdomain independently. The displacement continuity at the interfaces is enforced by introducing a set of Lagrange multipliers. The problem is then condensed on the interface and solved by a conjugate gradient algorithm. Three different preconditioners are proposed to accelerate its convergence. The proposed domain decomposition method is here exemplified with real high resolution images. It is shown to combine the metrological performances of finite element based digital image correlation and the parallelisation ability of subset based methods. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theoretical Analysis on the Measurement Errors of Local 2D DIC: Part I Temporal and Spatial Uncertainty Quantification of Displacement Measurements

This paper presents a theoretical uncertainty quantification of displacement measurements by subset‐based 2D‐digital image correlation. A generalised solution to estimate the random error of displacement measurement is presented. The obtained solution suggests that the random error of displacement measurements is determined by the image noise, the summation of the intensity gradient in a subset, the subpixel part of displacement, and the interpolation scheme. The proposed method is validated with virtual digital image correlation tests.     

Global and local coordinates in digital image correlation

Digital image correlation (DIC) is commonly used to measure specimen displacements by correlating an image of a specimen in an undeformed or reference configuration and a second image under load. To establish the correlation between the images, numerical techniques are used to locate an initially square image subset in a reference image. In this process, choosing appropriate coordinates is of fundamental importance to ensure accurate results. Both global and local coordinates can be used in shape functions. However, large rigid body rotations and deformations are accurately obtained by using global rather than local shape functions. In addition, points located after displacement may not be at an integer pixel distance from the original position. Hence subpixel displacement estimation methods such as interpolation or fitting of correlation coefficients are essential. A solution using the least-squares method is employed by choosing proper coordinates, and the feasibility of using local coordinates is demonstrated and validated with a mathematical model. Both simulated and experimental results show that the proper choice of coordinates does ensure the reliability and improve the accuracy of measurements in DIC.     

实测端元光谱和多光谱图像之间的模拟与细分

地物光谱特性是遥感应用的基础。本文以渭干河-库车河三角洲绿洲为研究区,首先选取裸土、植被两类地物作为研究对象,通过TM传感器的光谱响应函数,实现了将野外实测端元光谱拟合为多光谱离散光谱。其次在对TM图像的光谱波段进行细分的基础上,利用光谱知识库的数据支持来模拟获取具有更高光谱分辨率的细分光谱光学遥感图像,深入开展两种尺度相互转换的研究。结果表明:一、拟和的多光谱与TM像元光谱具有很好的相关性,在此基础上,采用线性算法建立端元光谱与遥感图像像元光谱的转换模型,实现了从实测端元光谱尺度向遥感多光谱像元尺度的定量光谱转换,为遥感定量分析奠定了一定基础。二、细分光谱模拟图像的方法能够较为可靠的模拟出真实高光谱分辨率图像的信息,模拟方法可信,达到了推广和验证的效果。     

Contrast enhancement of computed tomography images by adaptive histogram equalization‐application for improved ischemic stroke detection

The visualization of computed tomography brain images is basically done by performing the window setting, which stretches an image from the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine format into the standard grayscale format. However, the standard window setting does not provide a good contrast to highlight the hypodense area for the detection of ischemic stroke. While the conventional histogram equalization and other proposed enhanced schemes insufficiently enhance the image contrast, they also may introduce unwanted artifacts on the so‐called “enhanced image.” In this article, a new adaptive method is proposed to excellently improve the image contrast without causing any unwanted defects. The method first decomposed an image into equal‐sized nonoverlapped sub‐blocks. After that, the distribution of the extreme levels in the histogram for a sub‐block is eliminated. The eliminated distribution pixels are then equally redistributed to the other grey levels with threshold limitation. Finally, the grey level reallocation function is defined. The bilinear interpolation is used to estimate the best value for each pixel in the images to remove the potential blocking effect. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 22, 153–160, 2012     

Reconstruction of a high-resolution image on a compound-eye image-capturing system

The authors have proposed an architecture for a compact image-capturing system called TOMBO (thin observation module by bound optics), which uses compound-eye imaging for a compact hardware configuration [Appl. Opt. 40, 1806 (2001)]. The captured compound image is decomposed into a set of unit images, then the pixels in the unit images are processed with digital processing to retrieve the target image. A new method for high-resolution image reconstruction, called a pixel rearrange method, is proposed. The relation between the target object and the captured signals is estimated and utilized to rearrange the original pixel information. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. In the experimental TOMBO system, the resolution obtained is four times higher than that of the unit image that did not undergo reconstruction processing.     

Characterization of strain-softening behavior and failure mechanisms of composites under tension and compression

A methodology is presented to directly measure the damage properties and strain softening response of laminated composites by conducting over-height compact tension (OCT) and compact compression (CC) tests. Through the use of digital image correlation (DIC) technique, and analysis of the measured surface displacement/strain data, the strain-softening response of composites is constructed. This method leads to a direct determination of the Mode I translaminar fracture properties with the assumption that the shear stress is negligible around the damage zone and the crack growth occurs in the symmetric opening mode. Using this methodology, and by correlating the observed failure mechanisms with the strain-softening curves, the interaction of failure mechanisms leading to the final failure and also the distinction between the tensile and compressive failure mechanisms can be studied. The effectiveness of the method in accurate identification of the damage parameters is demonstrated through sectioning and deplying techniques. As a consistency check and further verification of the method, the obtained strain-softening curves are fed into a numerical damage mechanics model and successfully used to simulate the detailed response of the very same OCT and CC specimens from which the strain-softening curves were extracted.     

Subpixel precision of crack lip movements by Heaviside-based digital image correlation for a mixed-mode fracture

This study reports on the Heaviside-based digital image correlation (H-DIC) procedure and its application in fracture analysis. This improved DIC procedure was proposed to solve the uncertainty problems at the vicinity of the crack and to evaluate the opening and shear movements of crack lips and the orientations of cracks in the subset. Some tests were conducted to demonstrate the performance of the H-DIC algorithm. An application on argillaceous rock mass exhibiting multiple mixed-mode fractures is shown to validate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed method. This application consisted in processing images acquired from an experimental investigation performed in a gallery front submitted to climatic seasonal variations. The results illustrated how the H-DIC procedure enables to localise and to quantify the opening, shearing and orientation of subpixel cracks. A sensibility study performed on the opening and shear components demonstrated that the precision of crack aperture by H-DIC procedure is close to 0.14 pixel and the spatial resolution is equal to one pixel. Moreover, the crack area was calculated from local apertures on a monitoring duration of 1 year, and a maximum value of 595.8 mm² in winter was obtained.     

Experimental characterization of meso‐scale deformation mechanisms and the RVE size in plastically deformed carbon steel

The local deformation response of low carbon steel subjected to uniaxial tensile loading is investigated, and the local strain field at sub‐grain scale is obtained using high‐spatial‐resolution digital image correlation. The implemented digital image correlation method enables the observation and study of inhomogeneous deformation response at microstructural levels. Detailed local deformation mechanisms including mesoscopic slip bands are captured. Furthermore, the local information is used for the determination of representative volume element size in polycrystalline low carbon steel. To obtain the representative volume element size, we proposed and successfully implemented a strain variation method. Further, the influence of global strain on the local deformation mechanisms and representative volume element size is discussed. The challenges associated with the local strain measurement using digital image correlation are also discussed.     

Volumetric medical image compression using inter-slice correlation switched prediction approach

With the advancement in medical data acquisition and telemedicine systems, image compression has become an important tool for image handling, as the tremendous amount of data generated in medical field needs to be stored and transmitted effectively. Volumetric MRI and CT images comprise a set of image slices that are correlated to each other. The prediction of the pixels in a slice depends not only upon the spatial information of the slice, but also the inter-slice information to achieve compression. This article proposes an inter-slice correlation switched predictor (ICSP) with block adaptive arithmetic encoding (BAAE) technique for 3D medical image data. The proposed ICSP exploits both inter-slice and intra-slice redundancies from the volumetric images efficiently. Novelty of the proposed technique is in selecting the correlation coefficient threshold (T_ϒ) for switching of ICSP. Resolution independent gradient edge detector (RIGED) at optimal prediction threshold value is proposed for intra-slice prediction. Use of RIGED, which is modality and resolution independent, brings the novelty and improved performance for 3D prediction of volumetric images. BAAE is employed for encoding of prediction error image to resulting in higher compression efficiency. The proposed technique is also extended for higher bit depth volumetric medical images (16-bit depth) presenting significant compression gain of 3D images. The performance of the proposed technique is compared with the state-of-the art techniques in terms of bits per pixel (BPP) for 8-bit depth and was found to be 31.21%, 27.55%, 21.89%, and 2.39% better than the JPEG-2000, CALIC, JPEG-LS, M-CALIC, and 3D-CALIC respectively. The proposed technique is 11.86%, 8.56%, 7.97%, 6.80%, and 4.86% better than the M-CALIC, 3D CALIC, JPEG-2000, JPEG-LS and CALIC respectively for 16-bit depth image datasets. The average value of compression ratio for 8-bit and 16-bit image dataset is obtained as 3.70 and 3.11 respectively by the proposed technique.     

A Novel Class of Strain Measures for Digital Image Correlation

We propose a novel class strain measures for use with digital image correlation (DIC). Whereas the traditional notion of compatibility (strain as the derivative of the displacement field) is problematic when the displacement field varies substantially because of either measurement noise or material irregularity, the proposed measure remains robust, well defined and invariant under rigid body motion. Moreover, when the displacement field is smooth, the classical and proposed strain measures are approximations of each other. We demonstrate, via several numerical examples, the potential of this new strain measure for problems with steep gradients. We also show how the non‐local strain provides an intrinsic mechanism for filtering high‐frequency content from the strain profile and so has a high signal to noise ratio. This is a convenient feature considering image noise and its impact on strain calculations.     

A colour image retrieval scheme based on Z-scanning technique

Abstract

This paper proposes a new colour image retrieval scheme using Z-scanning technique for content-based image retrieval (CBIR). In recent years, the CBIR is a popular research topic for image retrieval. This paper proposes a scheme which employs the Z-scanning technique to extract directional intensity features for measuring the similarity between query and database images. In the multiple channel images, each colour channel can be processed individually or combined into a grey channel Y. In order to extract the features by Z-scanning technique from all images, each channel of all images must be divided into several N×N blocks. In each block, F pairs of pixels are scanned by a ‘Z’ direction to obtain the texture features. Each colour channel can be obtained an M×M Z-scanning co-occurrence matrix (ZSCM) for storing the probability of each relationship of all closest blocks. At the similarity measure stage, the ZSCMs of query image and database images are compared to measure their similarity. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme is beneficial for image retrieval when the images include the same texture or object. On the other hand, the proposed scheme also can get better retrieval results and more efficiency than colour correlogram (CC) technique for colour texture images. Another technique uses motif co-occurrence matrix (MCM) as the feature in similarity measurement. The experimental results show the proposed ZSCM can get better retrieval results and higher recall and precision values than the CC and MCM techniques for public image databases.     

A hybrid image restoration approach: Using fuzzy punctual kriging and genetic programming

We present an intelligent technique for image denoising problem of gray level images degraded with Gaussian white noise in spatial domain. The proposed technique consists of using fuzzy logic as a mapping function to decide whether a pixel needs to be krigged or not. Genetic programming is then used to evolve an optimal pixel intensity‐estimation function for restoring degraded images. The proposed system has shown considerable improvement when compared both qualitatively and quantitatively with the adaptive Wiener filter, methods based on fuzzy kriging, and a fuzzy‐based averaging technique. Experimental results conducted using an image database confirms that the proposed technique offers superior performance in terms of image quality measures. This also validates the use of hybrid techniques for image restoration. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 17, 224–231, 2007     

Medical image fusion based on improved sum‐modified‐Laplacian

Sum‐modified‐Laplacian (SML) plays an important role in medical image fusion. However, fused rules based on larger SML always lead to fusion image distortion in transform domain image fusion or image information loss in spatial domain image fusion. Combined with average filter and median filter, a new medical image fusion method based on improved SML (ISML) is proposed. First, a basic fused image is gained by ISML, which is used for evaluation of the selection map of medical images. Second, difference images can be obtained by subtracting average image of all sources of medical images. Finally, basic fused image can be refined by difference images. The algorithm can both preserve the information of the source images well and suppress pixel distortion. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the state‐of‐the‐art medical image fusion methods. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 25, 206–212, 2015     

Application of Digital Image Correlation to Address Complex Motions in Thermoelastic Stress Analysis

A motion compensation method for thermoelastic stress analysis (TSA) is described that uses digital image correlation (DIC) to capture the displacement field on the surface of the specimen. The displacement field is used to correct the infrared (IR) images to remove the effect of the motion of the specimen from the TSA. As the DIC displacements are obtained with a relatively high spatial resolution, sharp displacement gradients and discontinuities can be corrected. The feasibility of the motion compensation method for TSA is investigated firstly by validating the approach using data obtained from an aluminium alloy plate with a central circular hole loaded in tension and comparing the results with a finite element model. It is shown that the motion compensation approach significantly improves the accuracy of TSA, particularly when high magnification optics are used. Next, the feasibility of simultaneous capture of IR and white light images is investigated. It is shown that by using the correct combination of paints, a speckle pattern can be applied to the surface to provide contrast in the white light spectrum for the DIC but have a uniform emissivity in the IR spectrum so that there is no effect on the TSA. Thus, it is possible for the motion compensation to be conducted on data collected during fatigue tests. Finally, it is demonstrated that the motion compensation technique can be applied to discontinuous motion produced by face sheet debonding in a foam cored sandwich structure loaded in a double cantilever beam (DCB) configuration. It is shown that the motion compensation technique is capable of correcting the complex and non‐uniform motion for TSA in the DCB test, thereby enabling detailed thermoelastic data to be obtained from the vicinity of the crack tip.