Project 7: Computer Interface for Digital Image Correlation
Adviser(s): Ioannis Chasiotis (Assistant Professor, Aerospace Engineering)
Project description: Conventional methods for measuring strain in materials use strain and laser gages that provide only measurements at one point or a single line. A method that advances our capabilities to measure strain in an entire area is Digital Image Correlation (DIC) that compares successive digital images taken from an ongoing event (such as a sample subject to a tension test). This method offers resolution better than half a pixel and can be used with digital images taken at any scale and by any instrument.
At our laboratory we have developed a DIC code (kernel) in C++ that implements the traditional DIC algorithm. While for all practical purposes this kernel is sufficient to run calculations using DIC, processing large numbers of images becomes cumbersome, unless a graphic interface is available. Under the undergraduate summer research programs in 2006 and in 2007, the undergraduate students, Mr. Michael Birkholz (ECE, UIUC) and Mr. Nigel Ray (CS, UIUC) developed an interface with Visual C++, see figure, which made our DIC program very convenient to use.
We will continue this successful effort in the Summer 2008 with the following goals:
1) Add more functionalities to the interface developed under previous undergraduate summer research programs that serves as the program post-processor capabilities where the results of the program are plotted in graphic form (contour or vector plots)
2) Revisit the DIC kernel to reduce the computational time
Student background and expected research activities: The undergraduate student to be involved in this project is expected to have very good knowledge of C++ and Visual C++ and be familiar with object-oriented programming. The student will interact closely with the graduate research assistant who developed the kernel for DIC, and with Prof. Chasiotis.
Fig. 1.: DIC program interface developed under previous undergraduate summer research programs
