Computer Simulation and Experiments to Evaluate Digital Image Correlation Methods

Digital image correlation is an optical-numerical full field displacement measurement technique, which is more and more widely used in experimental mechanics[l-3]. The technique is based on a numerical comparison of digitized images taken at different stages of deformation of an object. In principle, any imaging technique can be used, provided that the deformed image can be predicted starting from the undeformed image and the displacement field. The digital image correlation technique then consists of numerically searching the space of all possible displacement fields, to find the displacement field which gives the best correlation of the predicted image with the actual image of the deformed state.