Individual fiber segmentation of three-dimensional microtomograms of paper and fiber-reinforced composite materials

Abstract

The structure of a material is of special significance to its properties, and material structure has been an active area of research. In order to analyze the structure based on digital microcopy images of the material, noise reduction and binarization of these images are necessary. Measurements on fiber networks, found in paper and wood fiber - reinforced composites, require a segmentation of the imaged material sample into individual fibers. The acquisition process for modern X-ray absorption mode micro-tomographic images is described. An improved method for the binarization of paper and fiber-reinforced composite volumes is suggested. State of the art techniques for individual fiber segmentation are examined and an improved method is suggested. Software tools for the mentioned image processing tasks have been created and made available to the public. The orientation distribution of selected paper and composite samples was measured using these tools.