Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554

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Construction and Building Materials

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Technical note

Quantification of angularity of general-shape particles by using Fourier

series and a gradient-based approach
D. Su a,⇑, W.M. Yan b
a
College of Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

A new approach for the angularity

quantification of general-shape
particles is proposed.

Morphology of general-shape
particles is reconstructed using
Fourier series analysis.

The gradient-based angularity index
is evaluated from the reconstructed
morphology.

Images in commonly used standard
charts are evaluated for their
angularity indices.

A simple-to-use criterion is suggested
for the classification of particle
angularity.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Particle angularity significantly affects the macroscopic mechanical behavior of aggregate assemblages.
Received 19 August 2017 However, most of the current approaches used for quantifying particle angularity are only applicable
Received in revised form 31 October 2017 to star-like particles. This study presents a new approach allowing the quantification of angularity of
Accepted 1 December 2017
general-shape particles. The method first reconstructs the particle morphology by applying Fourier series
analysis to the two-dimensional image of the particle. The gradient-based angularity index (AIg) is then
evaluated from the reconstructed morphology through numerical integration. AIg is zero for images of
Keywords:
any circularly shaped particles, including circles and ellipses, and it increases with increasing particle
Angularity index
Gradient approach
angularity. Images included in commonly used standard charts are evaluated for their AIgs. The results
Fourier series show a consistent pattern in regard to the qualitative angularity ranking of the particles. Based on the
Angularity classification findings, a simple-to-use criterion is suggested for the quantitative classification of particle angularity.
General-shape particles Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Background recognized that the macroscopic mechanical behaviors of aggre-

Aggregates, consisting of particles of sand, gravel, and crushed
stone, play an important role in the performance of cement con-
crete, asphalt pavements, and railway subgrades [1,2]. It has been
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sudong@szu.edu.cn (D. Su), r.yan@auckland.ac.nz (W.M. Yan).
gates correlate significantly with the morphology of constituting
particles, for which shape, angularity, and surface texture are com-
monly used to describe their characteristics at different scales [3].
Among these parameters, angularity is an important feature that
controls interlocking, compaction responses, and shear strength
of aggregates.
Traditionally, particle angularity is examined by comparing the
particles with two-dimensional (2D) images in the standard charts

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.12.004
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
548 D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554

suggested by geologists. The work is laborious and subjective.
Advancement of digital imaging techniques have enhanced the
development of corresponding systems that acquire and analyze
the morphological characteristics of aggregates in a more efficient
and objective manner [4,5]. Several approaches have been pro-
posed to quantify the particle angularity using different defini-
tions. Masad et al. [6] proposed a radius angularity index (AIr ;
where ‘‘r” is used as the subscript to denote ‘‘radius”) to quantify
the angularity of 2D particle images. The index was defined as
the sum of the absolute difference of distances between the outline
of a 2D particle image and that of an equivalent ellipse, expressed
as follows:
2p
Du1
 of the angularity indices obtained from outline slopes of the top,
X rPðiDuÞ  r EEðiDuÞ 
AIr ¼
r EEðiDuÞ
i¼0
where r PðiDuÞ is the radius of the particle at a directional angle iDu,
r EEðiDuÞ is the radius of an equivalent ellipse at the same direction,
and Du is the step size of u for the summation of AIr (e.g.,
Du ¼ p=36 ¼ 5 is adopted in [6]). The equivalent ellipse is
obtained to have the same aspect ratio as the studied particle
image. One could expect that AIr is 0 for all circularly shaped parti-
cle images. Masad et al. [6] showed minimal correlation between
AIr and the aspect ratio of the particle.
Another extensively adopted index for measuring the angularity
is the gradient-based angularity index (AIg ; where ‘‘g” is used to
denote the ‘‘gradient” operation) [7,8]. It is easily noticed that
the gradient direction for adjacent points changes rapidly at sharp
corners and smoothly at rounded surfaces of particles. Therefore,
the summation of the change in the gradient direction reflects
the angularity of a particle. Calculation of the gradient vectors
directly from digital images can be implemented using the Sobel
mask [9] or the Sobel–Feldman operator [10]. Different equations
have been proposed to obtain the sum of the differences in the gra-
dient direction. For example, Chen et al. [8] calculated and
summed the difference along the gradient direction using a con-
stant direction interval Du, i.e.,
2p
Du1
X  also by particle roughness at a smaller scale.
AIg ¼ AIgðChenÞ ¼ hðiþ1ÞDu  hiDu 
i¼0
where hiDu is the gradient direction at a directional angle u ¼ iDu.
Chen et al. [8] used a value for Du ¼ p=18 ¼ 10 . On the other hand,
Al-Rousan et al. [7] calculated the gradient directions for the points
on the image outline, and proposed the use of the metric
tX
n 3
AIg ¼ AIgðAlRousanÞ ¼ jhiþ3  hi j
i¼1
where i denotes the ith point on the outline of the particle image,
and tn denotes the total number of points on the image outline. It
is evident that for the same particle image, Eqs. (2) and (3) would
yield different values of AIg.
Wang et al. [11] proposed a unified method to quantify the
aggregate shape, angularity, and texture for star-like aggregates
using Fourier analyses. In their approach, the aggregate (image)
boundary is first described by the function RðuÞ that defines the
distance from the central point of the image to the image boundary
as a function of angle u, given 0 6 u < 2p. RðuÞ is then expanded
using Fourier series coefficients, as follows:
X
1 tionship between the radius R and the angle u does not exist. As a
RðuÞ ¼ a0 þ ½an cosðnuÞ þ bn sinðnuÞ
n¼1
where an and bn are Fourier coefficients. The low-frequency har-
monics (n < 5) describe the overall shape of a particle, and the
high-frequency harmonics (n > 25) contribute to surface texture.
Only the harmonics between n = 5 and 25 contribute significantly
to angularity. Wang et al. [11] proposed an angularity signature as
"  2 #
25  2
X an bn
AIF ¼ þ ð5Þ
i¼5
a0 a0
where ‘‘F” is used in the subscript of AIF to denote the ‘‘Fourier”
operation. Through sensitivity tests, they found that the unified
method can rank the aggregate consistently. However, the physical
meaning of AIF is not as self-evident as AIr or AIg :.
Other angularity indices include the average angularity index
(AIave ) developed by Rao et al. [12] and the smoothing angularity
index (AIs ) proposed by Tafesse [13]. AIave is a weighted average
ð1Þ side, and front views, with the areas of projected images being
the weight factors. AIs is defined as the standard deviation of the
perpendicular lengths between the two consecutive smoothed
curves plotted along the edge of the particle image. Al-Rousan
et al. [7] examined most of these approaches and concluded that
the methods based on the change in the gradient, or the outline
slope, are the most reliable to describe the angularity of particles
without being affected by the overall form of the images.
2. Motivation and objectives
Most of the current approaches for quantifying particle angular-
ity are only applicable for star-like particles, whereby all line seg-
ments connecting the image center to any other point on the image
boundary lie inside the particle. For nonstar-like particles, calcula-
tion of the radius angularity index (AIr ) is associated with the prob-
lem of non-uniqueness of radii along some directions, as illustrated
in Fig. 1(a). Similarly, computation of the gradient angularity index
(AIg ) defined by Eq. (2) will lead to the problem of non-uniqueness
of the gradient direction, h, along some directions (e.g., along direc-
tion u in Fig. 1(a)). Although the definition of AIg according to Eq.
(3) can circumvent this limitation, it calculates the angularity val-
ues for all boundary points and accumulates the sum as an index.
The value is likely to be affected not only by particle angularity, but
ð2Þ This research aims to propose a novel method that quantifies
the angularity of both star-like and nonstar-like particles. In this
method, the boundary of the general-shape particles is first recon-
structed based on Fourier series with a specified total number of
harmonics as functions of polar angles. The gradient-based angu-
larity index is then acquired from the reconstructed morphology
through numerical integration. The validity of the method is
demonstrated by evaluating the angularity index of the images
ð3Þ
as shown in the two standard charts used by geologists for visual
ranking of granular materials. Based on this study, index values
are suggested for quantitative classification of angularity.
3. Morphological reconstruction using Fourier series and
angularity quantification
3.1. Reconstructing morphology of general-shape particles using
Fourier analyses
As illustrated in Fig. 1(a), the radius connecting the image cen-
ter and the boundary is not unique along some directions (e.g.,
direction u) for nonstar-like particles. Therefore, a one-to-one rela-
ð4Þ result, the Fourier series expansion of the radius in the form of Eq.
(4) cannot be fulfilled for this type of particle boundary.
One commonly used strategy to address the problem is the
complex Fourier analysis introduced by Clark [14] that has been
applied in geological and geotechnical research [15,16]. In this
 D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554 549

y X
N
xðu0 Þ ¼ ax0 þ ½axn cosðnu0 Þ þ bxn sinðnu0 Þ ð6aÞ
n¼1

X
N
yðu0 Þ ¼ ay0 þ ½ayn cosðnu0 Þ þ byn sinðnu0 Þ ð6bÞ
n¼1
θB

θC B where x and y are coordinates of the points on the particle bound-

C ϕ ary; n is the number of harmonics; N is the total number of harmon-
o ics; and ax0 , ay0 , axn , bxn , ayn , and byn are the Fourier coefficients.
A x The Fourier coefficients are evaluated from the coordinates of
the sampled points on the particle’s boundary based on Eq. (6).
The total number of coefficients is 4N + 2 when the total number
of harmonics is N. On the other hand, the total number of coordi-
nates will become 2M if the number of sampled points is M. As
the number of points is usually much larger than the total number
of harmonics (e.g., M = 176 vs. N 6 40 for the example shown in
Fig. 2), Eq. (6) can be solved using the standard least-squares
(a) reentrance problem associated with nonstar-like particle method. After the coefficients are determined, the particle mor-
phology can be reconstructed again using Eq. (6) and different
polar angle step sizes, Du0 . The influence of the total number of
harmonics and the step size of the polar angle on the reconstructed
C′ morphology will be discussed in Section 3.3.
B′
3.2. Gradient-based angularity index for general-shape particles

The angularity index of general-shape particles is derived from

ϕC′ the reconstructed morphology described by Eq. (6). Based on this
ϕB′
equation, the gradient direction at any point on the particle bound-
o A′
R′ ary can be expressed as
 0 0 
y ðu Þ
h ¼ arctan ð7Þ
x0 ð u 0 Þ

where x0 ðu0 Þ and y0 ðu0 Þ are the derivatives of xðu0 Þ and yðu0 Þ, respec-
tively, with respect to u0 . From Eq. (6), we have

X
N
x0 ð u 0 Þ ¼ ½naxn sinðnu0 Þ þ nbxn cosðnu0 Þ ð8aÞ
(b) polar angles in the mapped circle n¼1

Fig. 1. Illustration of mapping from the particle boundary to a circle having the
X
N
same perimeter. y0 ðu0 Þ ¼ ½nayn sinðnu0 Þ þ nbyn cosðnu0 Þ ð8bÞ
n¼1

In Eq. (7), h is an angle (in radians) measuring from the x axis. It

method, the boundary of the particle is circumnavigated in the can be noticed from Eqs. (7) and (8) that the gradient direction h is
complex plane at a constant speed. The complex coordinates of cir- only a function of the polar angle u0 . Integrating the absolute value
cumnavigated points are then expressed as functions of Fourier of the change rate of h with respect to u0 gives rise to the following
series. The constraints of the complex Fourier analysis that have definition of angularity index, as proposed in this study:
led to its limited popularity include the facts that (1) the total Z 2p  
1  dh  0
 
number of points must be equal to 2k (k is a positive integer), AIg ¼
2p du0 du  1 ð9Þ
and (2) the points must be equally spaced along the boundary. 0

In this study, a method similar to the complex Fourier analysis,
but with greater flexibility, is adopted. Resampling the boundary
points at equal intervals is not required, and the total number of
points is no longer limited to 2k. As shown in Fig. 1, the points
on the particle image boundary are first mapped to a circle that
has the same perimeter as the image particle (e.g., mapping points
A, B, and C, in Fig. 1(a) to A0 , B0 , and C0 , in Fig. 1(b)). The distance
between neighboring points is preserved during the mapping.
Polar angles associated with each point (e.g., u0B for B0 in Fig. 1
(b)) are then determined by selecting an arbitrary starting point
(e.g., A0 in Fig. 1(b)). Subsequently, both the horizontal and vertical
coordinates of the points on the particle image boundary are
expressed using Fourier series as functions of the polar angle u0
(0 6 u0 < 2p), i.e.,
For a circle, as shown in Fig. 1(b), dh is always equal to du0
based on the inherent relationship between h and u0 . As a result,
AIg is zero for a circle according to Eq. (9).
For cases other than a circle, numerical integration of Eq. (9)
will be more straightforward and convenient. The equation is then
rewritten as:
1 X
w1  
hðiþ1ÞDu0  hiDu0   1
AIg ¼ ð10Þ
2p i¼0
where Du0 ¼ 2p=w is the step size of the polar angle, and w is the
increment factor. Numerical integration of the elliptical boundary
indicates that AIg is also zero for an ellipse, regardless of its aspect
ratio (the ratio of the long axis to the short axis).
550 D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554

(a) original digitized boundary (b) N=1

(c) N=2 (d) N=3

(e) N=5 (f) N=10

(g) N=25 (h) N=40

Fig. 2. Effect of the total number of harmonics on the reconstructed morphology (w = 360).

3.3. Effect of the total number of harmonics and the step size of polar
angle on the reconstructed morphology and the calculated parameters
Fig. 2 presents the particle boundary reconstructed using Four-
ier series with different total number of harmonics, N. When N = 1,
the reconstructed boundary becomes an ellipse with a comparable
aspect ratio to that of the original image. As shown, the recon-
structed boundary using N = 5 adequately captures the overall
morphology of the original particle image. As N increases further,
more details gradually emerge along the edge, such as small cor-
ners. When N = 25, the reconstructed particle boundary is visually
almost identical to the original image.
Fig. 3 shows the reconstructed boundaries with different incre-
ment sizes of polar angles, Du0 , but for the same total number of
harmonics (N = 25). It is seen that large polar angle step sizes
(i.e., a small increment factor, w) will result into a loss of some par-
ticle edge information. Visually, reconstruction using w = 90
appears to be adequate to capture the approximate morphology
 D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554 551

(a) w=10 (b) w=30

(c) w=90 (d) w=180

(e) w=360 (f) w=720

Fig. 3. Effect of the increment factor (w) on the reconstructed morphology (N = 25).

of the studied particle. However, further increase of the factor w malized by the values evaluated from the original digitized bound-
allows for a more accurate reproduction of local features of the ary shown in Fig. 2(a). As shown in Fig. 4(a), the area is
particle boundary. overestimated by approximately 14%, while the perimeter is
In order to quantify the influences of N and w, the area, perime- slightly overestimated when w = 10. When w is >40, the area is
ter, and angularity index of the reconstructed particle are calcu- almost identical to that enclosed by the original digitized bound-
lated with different parameter settings. The area is calculated by ary, but the perimeter is approximately 1% less than the corre-
integrating the magnitude of the cross-product of two vectors, sponding values of the original digitized boundary. The
ðxðu0 Þ  x0 yðu0 Þ  y0 ÞT and ðx0 ðu0 Þy0 ðu0 ÞÞT , given by angularity index is approximately 0.66 at w = 10. It continues to
Z 2p   increase with increasing w values until w is >200. In the light of
1  xðu0 Þ  x0 yðu0 Þ  y0  0 these results, w = 360 (i.e., Du0 ¼ 2p=360 ¼ 1 ) is chosen for all
A¼  du ð11Þ
2  x0 ð u 0 Þ y ðu Þ 
0 0
0 subsequent analyses, which ensure the precision of numerical
integration.
where x0 , y0 are the coordinates of the particle’s center. The perime-
The results in Fig. 4(b) indicate that the area and the perimeter
ter is calculated by
are both underestimated for small N (e.g., N = 1, 2, 3). This is
Z 2p qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
because the morphological features of the original particle are
P¼ ½x0 ðu0 Þ2 þ ½y0 ðu0 Þ2 du0 ð12Þ
0
not well captured in these reconstructions, as can be observed in
Fig. 2. The area converges to the value measured from the image
Fig. 4(a) shows the calculated results against the increment fac-
analysis at N = 10, while the perimeter is still 1% less than the mea-
tor, while Fig. 4(b) shows the results against the total number of
sured area at N = 25. The angularity index is 0 at N = 1 where the
harmonics. In the two figures, the area and the perimeter are nor-
552
1.2
Normalized area and perimeter
1 3
0.8
0.6
0.4
0 90 180 270 360
Increment factor, w
(a) influence of increment factor w (N=25)
1.2
Normalized area and perimeter
1 3
0.8
0.6
0.4
0 5 10 15 20
The total number of harmonics, N
(b) influence of total number of harmonics N (w=360)
Fig. 4. Influence of the total number of harmonics and the incremental step size on
calculated size and shape parameters.
reconstructed boundary is an ellipse. The value keeps increasing
when N increases, and the boundary becomes more irregular. The
increase in the angularity index is still significant after N > 25, even
though the perimeter exhibits only a small increase at this stage.
The high-frequency components of Fourier series are mainly
related to the surface texture of a particle, which has a small con-
tribution to the total perimeter, but imposes significant effects on
the gradient-based angularity index. The influence of the surface
texture should be neglected in the calculation of the angularity
index. Wang et al. [11] suggested that the low-frequency terms
of the Fourier series (1 6 n 6 4) are shape terms, the medium-
frequency terms (5 6 n 6 25) are angularity terms, and the high-
frequency terms (n > 25) are surface texture terms. They also
pointed out that very few particle profiles have >25 corners dis-
cernible to the unaided eye based on observations of many particle
profiles. Their recommendation is adopted in this study. Corre-
spondingly, N = 25 is used to reconstructed the particle boundary
so as to remove the surface textures associated with higher-
frequency components. The index evaluated from the boundary
reconstructed with N = 25 is therefore used to infer the angularity
of the particle.
4. Gradient-based angularity index of images in standard charts
and suggested criterion for angularity classification
In the past, particle angularity was examined by comparing
visually the real particles with images from standard charts. This
D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554
4 approach is qualitative, laborious, and subjective. In this study,
images included in some standard charts are analyzed using the
proposed method. The results can help to examine the validity of
the method and form a set of objective criteria to quantitatively
Angularity index
classify particle angularity.
Two sets of images are processed, as shown in Fig. 5. The images
2 are first converted to binary images, after which the particle
boundaries are detected and recorded. The coordinates of the
boundary points are fitted using Fourier series with N = 25 to
1 determine the Fourier coefficients. These coefficients are used to
Normalized area reconstruct the particle morphology and to calculate the angularity
Normalized perimeter index using Eq. (10), and with w = 360. The calculated AIg is shown
Angularity index
0 under each image in Fig. 5. The values of AIg generally agree well
450 540 630 720 with the qualitative ranking of the chart, i.e., the index becomes
larger as the particle evolves from well rounded to very angular
in each row of images. One exception is that the subangular low-
sphericity particle has a negligibly larger index compared to the
angular low-sphericity particle (2.35 vs. 2.33). In fact, the differ-
4 ence between the angularity of these two particles is difficult to
be judged visually as the subangular low-sphericity particle exhi-
bits an apparently concave edge, while the angular low-
sphericity particle does not. For the chart in Fig. 5(a), there is a
Angularity index
trend such that for the same ranking of angularity, low-
sphericity particles always have larger AIg values than high-
2 sphericity particles. This is not observed in the chart of Fig. 5(b).
For the images that have the same ranking of angularity in Fig. 5
(a), most of the low-sphericity particles are more angular than
1 the corresponding high-sphericity particles, as noted from the
Normalized area
number of visible corners. Therefore, the correlation of AIg with
Normalized perimeter
Angularity index
sphericity in Fig. 5(a) is not caused by the definition of the angular-
0 ity index adopted in this study, but rather by the subjective selec-
25 30 35 40 tion of images in this chart.
Table 1 summarizes the angularity index for the images in the
two charts. For the same rank of angularity, data in chart I are gen-
erally more dispersedly distributed than those in chart II, and the
mean values in the former are generally smaller than those in
the latter. Some particles can be ranked to be subrounded accord-
ing to chart II, but to be subangular based on chart I. Combining the
results from these two charts and considering ease of use, a set of
AIg values is therefore suggested to classify quantitatively the par-
ticle angularity: AIg P 3 for very angular, 2:5 6 AIg < 3 for angular,
2 6 AIg < 2:5 for subangular, 1:5 6 AIg < 2 for subrounded,
1 6 AIg < 1:5 for rounded, and 0 6 AIg < 1 for well-rounded.
Finally, an angularity of approximately 100 Pingtan sand (PTS)
particles with sizes ranging from 1 to 2.8 mm were evaluated by
the method proposed in this study. PTS is a natural, siliceous sand,
extensively used in China as standard sand. The sand particles are
first scanned using the microfocus X-ray computed tomography
(lXCT) facility (XRadia Micro XCT-400) at the Shenzhen University,
China, to obtain cross-sectional images (or slices) of the materials.
These images are then assembled to reconstruct the three-
dimensional (3D) images. After the principal axes (i.e., the major,
intermediate, and minor principal axes) of each particle are deter-
mined, three 2D images for each particle are obtained by numeri-
cally projecting the 3D particle to the planes orthogonal to the
minor principal axis, the intermediate principal axis, and the major
principal axis. These projections are correspondingly referred to as
the major, intermediate, and minor projections. The angularity of
the 2D images is analyzed, and their distributions for different pro-
jections are delineated in Fig. 6. This shows that the accumulative
probability densities for the three projections are similar. The aver-
age values of AIg are 1.48, 1.51, and 1.56, for the major, intermedi-
ate, and minor projections, respectively. AIg of most of the PTS
particles (approximately 75%) falls into the range of 1–2. Using
the recommended classification system, the sand can be classified
 D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554 553

High sphericity

2.19 1.71 1.23 1.10 1.00 0.87

Medium sphericity

2.64 2.07 1.80 1.17 1.02 0.98

Low sphericity

3.06 2.33 2.35 1.36 1.41 0.71

Very Well
Angular Subangular Subrounded Rounded
angular rounded

(a) Chart I [17]

High sphericity

3.11 2.95 2.70 1.63 0.86 0.75

Low sphericity

2.87 2.84 2.44 1.90 0.92 0.42

Very Well
Angular Subangular Subrounded Rounded
angular rounded

(b) Chart II [18]

Fig. 5. Charts used by geologists for visual evaluation of granular materials. The number below each image represents its angularity index as defined in this study. (See above-
mentioned references for further information.)

as rounded and subrounded. This conclusion agrees well with the
qualitative ranking of Pingtan sand, which has been reported as
rounded and subrounded.
5. Conclusions
This study proposes a novel method to quantify the angularity
of general-shape particles. The method first reconstructs the parti-
cle morphology based on Fourier series using a total number of
harmonics (N) of 25 to minimize the influence of surface texture.
Then, the gradient-based angularity index (AIg) is evaluated from
the reconstructed morphology through numerical integration.
The value of AIg as defined in this study is zero for circular particle
(including circles and ellipses) images. The values evaluated for the
images in the standard charts are generally consistent with quali-
tative ranking of the particles. Based on the results, the following
554 D. Su, W.M. Yan / Construction and Building Materials 161 (2018) 547–554

Table 1
Summary of the estimated angularity index for charts used by geologists for visual evaluation and the suggested values for angularity classification.

Very angular Angular Subangular Subrounded Rounded Well rounded

Chart I High sphericity 2.19 1.71 1.23 1.10 1.00 0.87
Medium sphericity 2.64 2.07 1.80 1.17 1.02 0.98
Low sphericity 3.06 2.33 2.35 1.36 1.41 0.71
Mean 2.63 2.04 1.79 1.21 1.14 0.85
Standard deviation 0.44 0.31 0.56 0.13 0.23 0.14
Chart II High sphericity 3.11 2.95 2.70 1.63 0.86 0.75
Low sphericity 2.87 2.84 2.44 1.90 0.92 0.42
Mean 2.99 2.90 2.57 1.77 0.89 0.59
Standard deviation 0.17 0.08 0.18 0.19 0.04 0.23
Suggested AIg values >3 2.5–3 2–2.5 1.5–2 1–1.5 0–1

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