Yeon-Jun Choo

Application of the correlation coefficient method for determination of the focal plane to digital particle holography

The correlation coefficient (CC) method, which was proposed by our research group, is applied to digital particle holography to locate the focal plane of particles. It uses the fact that the CC is maximum at the focal plane. The factors influencing this method are discussed with a numerical simulation of holograms. For real holograms, the Wiener filter was proposed to process both recorded holograms and reconstructed images. The application results using the dot array target showed that the Wiener filter is a very effective tool for processing holography-related images. The effects of the dot size and the object distance on the errors in the determination of the focal plane by the CC method were investigated by using the calibration target.

Focal plane location in digital holography

The correlation coefficient method is introduced to locate the focal plane in digital particle holography. It uses the fact that the correlation coefficient is maximum at the focal plane. The factors influencing this method are discussed with a numerical simulation of holograms. For real holograms, the Wiener filter was first proposed to process both recorded holograms and reconstructed images. The application results using the dot array target showed that the Wiener filter is a very effective tool for processing holography-related images. The effects of the dot size and the object distance on the errors in the determination of the focal plane by the correlation coefficient method were investigated by using the calibration target.

Extraction of sizes and velocities of spray droplets by optical imaging method

In this study, an optical imaging method was developed for the measurements of the sizes and velocities of droplets in sprays. Double-exposure single-frame spray images were captured by the imaging system. An image processing program was developed for the measurements of the sizes and positions of individual particles including separation of the overlapped particles and particle tracking and pairing at two time instants. To recognize and separate overlapping particles, the morphological method based on watershed segmentation as well as separation using the perimeter and convex hull of image was used consecutively. Better results in separation were obtained by utilization of both methods especially for the multiple or heavily-overlapped particles. The match probability method was adopted for particle tracking and pairing after identifying the positions of individual particles and it produced good matching results even for large particles like droplets in sprays. Therefore, the developed optical imaging method could provide a reliable way of analyzing the motion and size distribution of droplets produced by various sprays and atomization devices.

Measurements of three-dimensional velocities of spray droplets using the holographic velocimetry system

The Holographic Particle Velocimetry system can be a promising optical tool for the measurements of three dimensional particle velocities. In this study, the holographic particle velocimetry system was used to measure the sizes and velocities of droplets produced by a commercial full cone spray nozzle. As a preliminary validation experiment, the velocities of glass beads on a rotating disk were measured with uncertainty analysis to identify the sources of all relevant errors and to evaluate their magnitude. The error of the particle velocity measured by the holographic method was 0.75 m/s, which was 4.5% of the known velocity estimated by the rotating speed of disk. The spray droplet velocities ranged from 10.3 to 13.3 m/s with average uncertainty of +-1.6 m/s, which was +-14% of the mean droplet velocity. Compared with relatively small uncertainty of velocity components in the normal direction to the optical axis, uncertainty of the optical axis component was very high. This is due to the long depth of field of droplet images in the optical axis, which is inherent feature of holographic system using forward-scattering object wave of particles.

The Characteristics of the Particle Position Along an Optical Axis in Particle Holography

The Holographic Particle Velocimetry system can be a promising optical tool for the measurements of three dimensional particle velocities. One of inherent limitations of particle holography is the very long depth of field of particle images, which causes considerable difficulty in the determination of particle positions in the optical axis. In this study, we introduced three auto-focusing parameters corresponding to the size of particles, namely, Correlation Coefficient, Sharpness Index, and Depth Intensity to determine the focal plane of a particle along the optical axis. To investigate the suitability of the above parameters, the plane image of dot array screens containing different size of dots was recorded by diffused illumination holography and the positions of each dot in the optical axis were evaluated. In addition, the effect of particle position from the holographic film was examined by changing the distance of the screen from the holographic film. All measurement results verified that the evaluated positions using suggested auto-focusing parameters remain within acceptable range of errors. These research results may provide fundamental information for the development of the holographic velocimetry system based on the automatic image processing.

Shape Detection of Ellipsoidal Droplets Using Randomized Hough Transform

In this study, the image processing program for deducing parameters of the elliptic shape of the partially overlapped liquid droplets was developed using the randomized Hough transform and the parameter decomposition. The procedure for the shape detection consists of three steps. For the first step, the candidate centers of ellipses are determined by the geometric property of the ellipse. Next, the rest parameters are estimated by the randomized Hough transform. In the final step for the post-processing, optimally approximated parameters of ellipses are determined. The developed program was applied to the simulated overlapped ellipses, real overlapped droplets, and real spray droplets. The shape detection was very excellent unless there existed inherent problems in original images. Moreover, this method can be used as an effective separating method for the overlapped small particles.