Segmentation Tomographic Particle Image Velocimetry

In tomographic PIV (TPIV) by volume segmentation images of particles in a volume are segmented into images on a set of planes. The planes of images can be analysed by standard monoor stereo-PIV, and the volume of flow vectors can be recreated by assembling the planes of vectors. The interrogation process is similar to the HPIV analysis done in Barnhart, et al. [1], except that the planes of image data are extracted from two-dimensional camera images of the volume of particles instead of three-dimensional holographic images. Like the tomographic PIV method of Elsinga, et al. [2], planar segmentation requires at least two cameras and works best with three or four. Unlike the method of Elsinga, et al. [2], planar segmentation does not require reconstruction of individual particle images one pixel at a time, and it does not require an iterative process, so it operates much faster.