Particle Tracking in Three-Dimensional Space

The photogrammetric procedure described in the previous chapter yields coordinates of particle positions in space at successive time steps. These coordinates have inevitably true errors of which the root mean square values σ i, rms in x, y and z-directions have been estimated in the photogrammetric part (Maas, this chapter). Hence particle positions are determined with some known noise. Noise depends mainly on: The optical properties of the media involved, e.g. index of refraction of air, water, oil, glass, etc. The imaging arrangement used and the quality of the particle images The spatial camera resolution and imaging scale The quality of the calibration