Table Of Contentimage
analysis
Applications in
Materials Engineering
Leszek Wojnar
CRC Press
Boca Raton London New York Washington, D.C.
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
CRC Series in
Materials Science and Technology
Series Editor
Brian Ralph
Control of Microstructures and Properties
in Steel Arc Welds
Lars-Erik Svensson
The Extraction and Refining of Metals
Colin Bodsworth
The Quantitative Description of the
Microstructure of Materials
K.J. Kurzydlowski and Brian Ralph
Grain Growth and Control of Microstructure
and Texture in Polycrystalline Materials
Vladimir Novikov
Corrosion Science and Technology
D. E. J. Talbot and J. D. R. Talbot
Image Analysis: Applications in
Materials Engineering
Leszek Wojnar
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wojnar, Leszek.
Image analysis applications in materials engineering / Leszek
Wojnar.
p. cm. -- (Materials science and technology series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8493-8226-2 (alk. paper)
1. Materials--Testing. 2. Image analysis. 3. Image processing-
-Digital techniques. I. Title. II. Series: Materials science and
technology (Boca Raton, Fla.)
TA410.W65 1998
621.1'1---- dc2l 98-34435
CIP
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Preface
Many of my friends complained that all the books on image analysis
were prepared for mathematicians rather than for laboratory workers.
It was an impulse to issue in 1994, in collaboration with Miroslaw
Majorek, a simple textbook on computer-aided image analysis, obvi-
ously written in Polish. Some of my foreign colleagues looked at this
book, appreciated its graphic form and... suggested, that it should be
published in English.
My first reaction was that it was not worthy enough. Surprisingly,
they answered with a very tempting argument: you started to write this
book because you did not find appropriate ones on the market. Maybe
yes... So, now you have my English version in your hands and I would
like to point out its three main properties, that can be important for
you, as a reader:
• it is devoted really to applications. So, you will not find a system-
atic description of image processing operations. Instead, you can
look for a certain problem - for example, grain boundary detection
- and get immediately, possibly a full solution to this problem
• it is written in a very simple manner and illustrated with numerous
pictures that will help you to understand it. Probably, many items
can be understood after studying only the illustrations. But do not
worry about the text - I avoid equations whether possible
• all the examples were processed by myself and thoroughly ex-
plained. You will not find incomplete explanations, cited from
other works. It may happen that my solution is not the optimum
one, but it always works. You will know how to repeat it on your
own equipment and I hope, my book will inspire you to experiment
with your apparatus.
Probably nobody is able to face a challenge such as writing
a technical book without significant help from others. I am not an
exception, either. So, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all
those, who helped me, even if I am unable to cite their names - simply,
the list would be too long. But among these generous persons there are
a few I must list here.
First, I am really indebted to Brian Ralph, who generously agreed
to undertake the burden of improving my English. Second, I would
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
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like to thank Christopher Kurzydlowski, who encouraged me to start
the whole project, for his support. I have to point out that my under-
standing of image analysis would be much, much less without the
support from my French colleagues, Jean Serra and, especially, Jean-
Louis Chermant. I would like to acknowledge also all my friends who
gave me their images which were used to illustrate the algorithms.
And last but not least - many thanks to Bruno Lay and Gervais
Gauthier from ADCIS/AAI, who delivered free of charge, the newest
version of their image analysis software to use for processing all the
examples.
-
Cracow, August 1998
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
The Author
Leszek Wojnar, D.Sc., is an Associate
Professor at Cracow University of
Technology, Poland. His research inter-
ests are in image analysis, stereology
and materials engineering. He is affili-
ated with the Polish Society for Materi-
als Engineering, the International Soci-
ety for Stereology and the Polish Soci-
ety for Stereology.
His Ph.D. thesis obtained at the In-
stitute of Materials Science, Cracow
University of Technology (1985) was
dedicated to the role of nodular graphite
in the fracture process of cast iron.
Dr. Wojnar is known for his innovative methods in teaching oriented
towards problem solving. In recent years (1990-1997) he has worked
on various aspects of the application of computer technology in mate-
rials science, including image analysis and development of the soft-
ware for weldability assessment. Dr. Wojnar has participated as
a member to various advisory boards of the congresses in stereology
(Freiburg, 1989, Irvine, California, 1991, Prague, 1993 and Warsaw,
1997). He was an invited lecturer in Freiburg and Warsaw and worked
as editor for many conference proceedings.
Dr. Wojnar has published more than 50 articles in periodicals and
conference proceedings and has published two books (in Polish):
Computerized Image Analysis with M. Majorek (1994) and Applica -
tion of Computational Methods in Weldability Assesment with
J. Mikula (1995). His work Principles of Quantitative Fractography
(1990) issued at the Cracow University of Technology was the first
such complete monograph in Poland and gave him the D.Sc. position.
An unusual accomplishment and one which stems from the exist-
ing financial climate surrounding Cracow University is that he devel-
oped his own private laboratory on image analysis which now works
in conjunction with universities throughout Poland. Recent works of
this small laboratory are devoted mainly to applications in medicine.
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
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Acknowledgments
I would like to express my sincere thanks to all my friends and
colleagues who nicely allowed me to use their images as illustration
material in this book. These generous helpers were (in alphabetical
order):
Jacek Chrapon'ski (Figures 4.11, 4.12a and 4.13a)
•
Aleksandra Czyrska-Filemonowicz (Figures 4.29, 4.31a, 5.6 and
•
5.7)
• Wieslaw Dziadur (Figures 2.3 and 4.23a, b)
• Marek Faryna (Figures 4.4a and 4.23d)
Gervais Gauthier (Figure 4.16a)
•
• Jan Glownia (Figure 4.27)
Gabriela Górny (Figures 2.18a, 2.28a and 4.28a)
•
• Krzysztof Huebner (Figures 2.32, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6)
• Anna Kadluczka (Figure 4.3a)
• Jan Kazior (Figures 2.10, 2.11 a and 7.2)
• Krzysztof Kurzydlowski (Figure 4.24)
• Anita Myalska-Olszówka (Figure 5.9 )
• Carl Redon (Figure 4.40a)
• Kazimierz Satora (Figures 4.23e, 5.14a and 5.15a)
• Janusz Szala (Figures 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 4.17a and 4.18b)
• Adam Tabor (Figures 2.9, 3.10 and 4.26)
• Roman Wielgosz (Figures 2.13a, 2.15a and 4.30a).
Thank you.
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
Contents
Chapter one - Introduction
1.1 Digital images and their analysis versus the human vision
system
1.2 General concept of the book
Chapter two - Main tools for image treatment
2.1 About this chapter
2.2 Basic image enhancement
2.3 Filters
2.4 Binarization
2.5 Mathematical morphology
2.6 Fourier transformation
2.7 Edge detection
2.8 Combining two images
2.9 Mouse etching
Chapter three - Image acquisition and its quality
3.1 Specimen preparation
3.2 Image acquisition
3.3 Shade correction
3.4 Removing artifacts
3.5 Basic tips
Chapter four - Detection of basic features
4.1 Grain boundaries
Example 1: Grains in a model alloy used for machine-
ability tests
Example 2: Restoration of grain boundaries in the QE 22
alloy after high-temperature homogenization
Example 3: Grains in a polystyrene foam
Example 4: Grains of a clean, single-phase material
Example 5: Grains in a CeO ceramic
2
Example 6: WC-Co cermet
Example 7: Grains in a high-speed steel
Example 8: A tricky solution to a nearly hopeless case
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
4.2 Other features detected like grains
4.3 Pores and isolated particles
4.4 Chains and colonies
4.5 Fibers
Chapter five - Treatment of complex structures
5.1 Textured and oriented structures
5.2 Very fine structures
5.3 Fracture surfaces
Chapter six - Analysis and interpretation
6.1 Image processing and image analysis
6.2 Measurements of single particles
6.3 First measurements - numbers
6.4 Shape
6.5 Grain size
6.6 Gray-scale measurements
6.7 Other measurements
Chapter seven - Applications and case histories
7.1 Quality and routine control
7.2 Simulation
7.3 Research and case histories
7.4 Concluding remarks
References
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
Chapter one
Introduction
1.1 Digital images and their analysis versus the
human vision system
During the last ten years we observed a tremendous expansion of
more and more powerful personal computers and development of
user-friendly, graphically oriented operating systems. The computing
power of commercial machines doubles in approximately one to two
years, and even more powerful computers are used on a laboratory
scale. Obviously, the most advanced computer is worth nothing with-
out appropriate software. The unprecedented market success of gen-
eral purpose software developers forced numerous smaller companies
to look for niche applications, very often connected with computer
graphics. The availability of frame grabbers, together with the wide
range of video cameras, allows the computer to see images and in-
duces the temptation to try simulation of the human vision system. As
a consequence, a good deal of image analysis software is currently at
hand. It allows many research workers to practice with tools previ-
ously available only for a limited group of specialists.
However, new tools also provide new problems, often caused by
some misunderstanding. High resolution graphics allows one to pro-
duce photo-realistic effects, leading to impressive virtual reality prod-
ucts. One can walk through non-existent buildings, observe crash tests
of newly designed but still non-existent cars, train surgeons on virtual
patients, etc. Similar effects can be obtained on small scale in almost
all personal computers and the appropriate software is commercially
marketed.
Computerized graphical presentations, often demonstrated in real-
time mode, are extremely impressive, especially for novices. They are
used very frequently, particularly for advertising purposes. Unfortu-
nately, such breathtaking spectacles in virtual reality may lead to
a false impression that computers can do almost everything. Moreo-
ver, many people are disappointed and frustrated when trying to do
anything on their own. Such a case is very common in image analysis
applications, which work perfectly, but only on the test images. Let us
try to find the reason for this situation.
© 1999 by CRC Press LLC
