Engineering Science and Materials Commons^™

Microcomputer Based Digital Image Processing System Developed To Count And Size Laser-Generated Small Particle Images, K. D. Ahlers, D. R. Alexander

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

A microcomputer-based digital image processing system has been developed to count and size laser-generated small particle images. Processing rates of 5 to 600 frames per minute were achieved by utilizing a real-time digital image processor. Particles from 7 to 700 µm in the plane of focus were counted and sized. A major emphasis in this work was to determine the basic problems and limitations involved with using a digital image processing scheme to accurately size particles. Areas that were investigated include the effect of the threshold level on measured particle size, particle boundary diffraction gray-level gradients, and geometric nonlinearities introduced …