MEASUREMENT OF PARTICLE MOVEMENT IN GRANULAR SOILS USING

IMAGE ANALYSIS
By Murat Guler,1 Tuncer B. Edil,2 and Peter J. Bosscher3

ABSTRACT: The flowing behavior of granular soils in the form of localized deformations and shear bands is
a difficult phenomenon to define explicitly in the modeling of soil-structure interface problems. However, for
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development of accurate numerical solutions for these problems, an estimation of particle movements is impor-
tant in determining the nature of displacement fields within the granular media. Video images from direct shear
tests were used to capture the movement of individual grains relative to the movement of a ribbed structural
surface. Two different algorithms have been developed to determine particle displacements in an image sequence
of the interface during a direct shear test. BMAD employs a block-matching algorithm using unit patterns of
images to determine two-dimensional particle displacement vectors. MATCH, on the other hand, computes
displacements based on centroid locations of segmented particles that are matched using a four-level filter
algorithm in successive image frames. Measured hardware dependent noise was reduced during image acquisition
by means of a frame averaging technique implemented in BMAD. BMAD was successfully employed to deter-
mine particle displacements in Ottawa sand images obtained during shearing on a ribbed surface. The results
were verified with MATCH using the same image frames.

INTRODUCTION ber of digital images involving small-sized particles needs to

Soil-structure interface behavior is known to have control-
ling effects on the load-carrying capacities of deep founda-
tions, soil nails, reinforced earth structures, etc. Design of
these structures is typically based on the ultimate load-carrying
capacity criterion and on highly empirical relations that are
not specific to soil-structure interface properties. To better un-
derstand the nature of the problem, there have been increasing
attempts to model the granular soil-structure interface behavior
using particle-level information. The objective of this approach
is to account for the critical parameters of the soil-structure
interface behavior and ultimately to refine the design methods
of these structures. The analysis of granular soil behavior at
the particle level calls for using more sophisticated techniques
to describe and quantify the fundamental parameters of particle
behavior.
Some progress has been made on the application of image
analysis techniques in geomechanics. Donohoe and Bacobella
(1991) proposed a particle tracking technique using polar edge
maps of segmented particles. They placed sand particles in a
vessel and subjected them to a vertical pressure as the se-
quence of images was recorded. Their method segments im-
ages using an edge detection algorithm and generates polar
edge map histograms for each particle based on an average
diameter defined by the user. The algorithm then links the
incomplete particle boundaries corresponding to the peaks
within the edge histograms. Particles in the entire image se-
quence are matched based on statistical correlations, and the
translations, i.e., the difference between centroid locations, are
computed for each matched particle. Their method is most
useful in applications in which image acquisition is performed
at higher magnifications and when only a few number of
frames are required for the detection of particle translations.
Apparently, the proposed method is tedious when a large num-
1
Grad. Student, Dept. of Civ. and Envir. Engrg., Univ. of Wisconsin-
Madison, Madison, WI 53706.
2
Prof., Dept. of Civ. and Envir. Engrg., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison,
Madison, WI.
3
Prof., Dept. of Civ. and Envir. Engrg., Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison,
Madison, WI.
Note. Discussion open until September 1, 1999. To extend the closing
date one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Manager
of Journals. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and
possible publication on December 18, 1998. This paper is part of the
Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, Vol. 13, No. 2, April, 1999.
䉷ASCE, ISSN 0887-3801/99/0002-0116 – 0122/$8.00 ⫹ $.50 per page.
Paper No. 19830.
116 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / APRIL 1999
be analyzed, because the user defines particle centroids.
Hryciw and his associates (Hryciw and Raschke 1996; Hry-
ciw et al. 1996) developed two different analysis tools, Tracker
and Tracer, to study particle deformations occurring under
rapid and quasi-static conditions. They used an edge detection
algorithm in Tracker to segment particle groups that could be
tracked through the entire image sequence. Centroid locations
of the selected particles computed for each frame are used to
determine particle displacements. To analyze rapid particle
translations in a flowing media, they developed Tracer, which
constructs trajectories of colored particles by applying logical
‘‘or’’ operations to a number of image frames. Using a mor-
phological thinning operation, particle paths in the recorded
images are transformed into lines through which the centroid
location of each trace particle translates during the test. The
thinned images are then analyzed, and similar data to that of
Tracker is produced for the displacements of the trace parti-
cles. Due to the difficulty in segmenting overlapped particle
groups, Tracker was only able to analyze individual particles
that could be detected throughout the test. Crossing of the
traces among the colored particles produced a similar overlap-
ping problem for Tracer that made the analysis of individual
particle traces difficult. Tracking individual particles using ei-
ther of these approaches permits only a limited number of
particles to be analyzed in the entire period of test duration.
Similar work has also been presented by Gustafsson and
Gustafsson (1996), in which the movement of granular parti-
cles in a circular container were analyzed by tracing particle
trajectories in a series of images. To differentiate between par-
ticle sizes, each group was colored differently. Images are con-
tinuously acquired during the test. Particles of equal sizes
(with the same color) are separated using thresholding tech-
niques. Trajectories of particles that represent the flow paths
of the selected particle groups are constructed by subtracting
successive image frames from each other. The limited number
of available gray levels and crossing of particle trajectories
reduce the number of tracked particles to be analyzed, as in
the method of Hryciw et al. (1996).
For studying the movement of fine granular soils, Gustafs-
son and Marklund (1995) suggested counting the number of
particle passages for each pixel in an image frame rather than
particle edges for large sized granular soils. They determined
the maximum particle velocity in terms of pixel and particle
size for the accurate number of particle passages. The sug-
gested method, however, requires a large number of image

J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 1999, 13(2): 116-122

 frames with long test durations to reduce the error resulting
from variations in the grayscale of pixels.
The method presented in this paper describes two rapid au-
tomated techniques to determine particle displacements with-
out requiring significant user effort and judgment, using typ-
ical hardware and image acquisition tools that are commonly
employed in practical image analysis and processing problems
(Guler 1997). BMAD was adapted from the Moving Picture
Expert Group (M.P.E.G.), the ISO standard for digital video
applications, which employs a block-based matching algorithm
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to analyze displacements between image frames. In this
method, groups of pixels rather than particles are used for the
matching operation. MATCH, on the other hand, employs
four-level filtering algorithms to match previously analyzed
colored sand particles dispersed in the particulate media. Re-
sults of both algorithms are compared using Ottawa sand par-
ticles during an interface shear test, and the performance of
the block-based matching method with an added frame aver-
aging algorithm is verified with the results of MATCH, an
object matching algorithm.
PARTICLE MOTION ESTIMATION THROUGH BLOCK
MATCHING METHOD — BMAD
Block-based matching is a widely used method in industrial
applications because of its moderate hardware requirements as
well as the ease of implementations in complex motion detec-
tion and pattern recognition problems. It is the accepted mo-
tion estimation and compensation method of the Moving Pic-
ture Expert Group, a section of the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO), working on digital video image op-
timization techniques. The principal assumption in this method
is that small patterns of pixel blocks can be tracked from one
image to the next and that their movement is directly related
to the movement of particles contained in the pixel block. Fun-
damentally, the method employs a searching algorithm to find
the best match of a pixel block taken from the reference frame
to pixel blocks in the next frame. The method applies only to
translational motion estimation, not rotational motion. How-
ever, more sophisticated algorithms using the same approach
exist to account for rotating objects. Because the search range
for blocks is determined by a distance criterion, typically
known as a ‘‘search window,’’ block-based matching is also
called a ‘‘spatial domain search approach.’’
The block matching method that was employed in this study
is a subalgorithm of the M.P.E.G. II based on the minimum
absolute difference-matching criterion. The best motion vector
is computed by searching for the minimum absolute difference
FIG. 1. Geometrical Parameters Used in Block-Based Match-
ing Method
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / APRIL 1999 / 117
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 1999, 13(2): 116-122
FIG. 2. Parameters Used in Minimum Absolute Difference Cri-
terion
of the pixel values between two sequential image frames.
There are three factors that may control the performance of
the method: the matching criterion, the search strategy, and the
macro block size (Tekalp 1995), as discussed in detail in the
subsequent sections. Fig. 1 illustrates the input parameters for
the method. The macro block is a block of pixels used to
match in the successive image, the size of which is predeter-
mined with respect to the average size of objects within those
images. It is required to define an integer number of macro
blocks where the image horizontal and vertical resolutions are
divided by the macro block horizontal and vertical sizes, re-
spectively. The side length, on the other hand, can be any
value, depending on the estimated magnitude of motion be-
tween successive frames.
Matching Criterion
There are different matching criteria defined for block
matching methods, depending on the type of application. Be-
cause of computational simplicity, the minimum absolute dif-
ference criterion MAD is considered the most effective search-
ing criteria. The MAD can be defined as follows:
MAD(d1, d2) = 冘 兩 p(xk, yk) ⫺ p(xk⫹1 ⫹ d1, yk⫹1 ⫹ d2)兩 (1a)
&1, d
(d &2) = arg min MAD(d1, d2) (1b)
where & d1, &
d2 = displacements in the horizontal and vertical
directions, respectively, corresponding to the minimum of the
sum of the absolute differences, MAD, for the current macro
block; p(xk, yk) = gray scale pixel values at xk, yk location
within the current macro block in frame k; and p(xk⫹1 ⫹ d1,
yk⫹1 ⫹ d2) = gray scale pixel values at xk⫹1 ⫹ d1, yk⫹1 ⫹ d2 in
frame k ⫹ 1, as seen in Fig. 2.
Search Strategy
To find the best matching macro block in the closest prox-
imity relative to its original position in the reference frame, a
spiral searching path was implemented in the algorithm. The
search starts from the center of the search window, seeking
the best matching macro block in the current frame by scan-
ning through all the pixels within the search window, as illus-
trated in Fig. 3. As the macro block travels within this search
range in the current frame, the absolute difference of each
pixel grayscale value is computed for each possible position.
At the end of this process, a motion vector is drawn starting
from its original position in the reference frame to the current
position in the current frame where the minimum of the com-
puted absolute differences is found, i.e., when (1) is satisfied.
Using this strategy, however, may not reflect the actual dis-
placement vectors in the corners and the sides of the image
frames because of the constrained motion of the macro blocks
within the search window. This condition is also shown in Fig.
3. Considering this limitation, it is recommended that the dis-
placement fields at these regions be evaluated with the neigh-
borhood displacement vectors computed in the vicinity of

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FIG. 3. Search Path within Search Window for Different Posi-
tions of Macro Blocks
these fields. One solution suggested for this drawback is
stretching the image frame to carry the searching operation out
of the frame and then transforming it into its original size after
the operation is completed. However, the computed motion
vectors in these locations were found to be less important in
terms of the characterization of particle flows than the interior
motion vectors, and this approach was not implemented in the
algorithm of BMAD.
Determination of the search window size was performed by
evaluating the algorithm performance based on four test pa-
rameters: the actual magnification that corresponds to the cur-
rent resolution in the direction of motion; the image resolution
in the direction of motion; the displacement rate at which mo-
tion takes place; and the time interval between image frames
or the frequency of image acquisition. The search window size
can be estimated using the following equations:
1 boundaries. The final motion vector is then computed for the
m= (2)
MR
s
T= (3)
t as many times as the number of macro blocks before the al-
T gorithm proceeds to the next pair of frames in the recorded
Minimum Side Length = (4)
m current frame in the previous run is used as the reference frame
where mmi = millimeters in image; mma = millimeters in ac-
tual size; M = actual magnification corresponding to the cur-
rent resolution of the image in the direction of motion (mmi /
mma); R = image resolution in the direction of motion (pixel/
mmi); m = actual pixel size relative to actual magnification
(mma /pixel); T = total translation difference between image
frames (mma /image); s = displacement rate at which the mo-
tion takes place (mma /s); and t = frequency at which image
frames are captured (image/s).
Eqs. (2) – (4) can be used to prevent excessive computations
during the analysis. It should be noted that the displacement
rate used in (3) corresponds to the overall velocity, such as
the shear box velocity in an interface shear test, rather than
the particle velocity within the box. The particle velocity is
generally equal to or lower than the box velocity; however, in
some cases, such as in loose soil, particles may translate faster
than the box within the same time interval, and thus the pre-
dicted side length may not reflect the actual translations for
these particles. It is therefore recommended that the side length
be chosen at least 3 – 5 pixels larger than the computed side
length using (4).
Determination of Macro Block Size
Because the matching criterion is based on the pixel gray-
scale rather than the spatial characteristics of image frames, it
118 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / APRIL 1999
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 1999, 13(2): 116-122
is essential to define a macro block size that can cover on
average an entire particle for which the spectrum of pixel gray-
scale is usually high. This strategy becomes even more im-
portant for low contrast images in which pixel grayscale values
have relatively uniform distributions. The algorithm developed
for BMAD allows the user to define a different macro block
vertical size than its horizontal size to obtain the best geo-
metric fit for the particle geometry.
Description of Algorithm Built Into BMAD
The required input parameters for the algorithm are refer-
ence frame, current frame, assigned macro block vertical and
horizontal dimensions, and side length, as previously defined.
The number of searches for each pair of image frames is es-
sentially the total number of macro blocks, which is computed
by dividing the area of the image frame by the area of the
defined macro block. The searching operation is started within
the current frame at the location of the first macro block on a
spiral search path, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Each motion vec-
tor that satisfies the minimum absolute difference criterion is
referenced to the first pixel location in the center point of the
search window and calculated based on the distance away
from the starting point (i.e., the center pixel of search win-
dow). In the meantime, as the computation of motion vectors
proceeds, the boundary locations of macro blocks are exam-
ined to determine whether they remain within the current
frame region. This subroutine is added to the algorithm to
control the searching process in the image frame corner and
the boundary positions due to the constrained search regions,
as indicated in Fig. 3. For each pixel within the search range,
the absolute difference is also computed and updated based on
comparison with its previous value. These operations are re-
peated for every pixel within the search window to determine
the minimum absolute difference without exceeding the frame
current macro block based on its original position and the last
pixel point where the minimum absolute difference was found.
This closed loop, shown by the solid frame in Fig. 4, is run
series of images. In each new operation of the algorithm, the
while the next frame is assigned to the status of current frame.
The main steps followed in the algorithm are shown in Fig.
4. The output data is the horizontal and vertical components
of the displacement vectors for each pair of successive image
frames.
The main routine of BMAD was written in the C⫹⫹ pro-
gramming language by modifying the standard subroutine of
the M.P.E.G. II. The compiled version of the algorithm was
then transformed into a LabVIEW virtual instrument (VI) us-
ing the advanced Code Interface Node (CIN) feature, which
establishes the necessary interface to user-defined applications.
LabVIEW (LabVIEW 1994) is a graphical programming soft-
ware that enables users to easily design interface programs for
various applications by assembling graphical objects in a block
diagram form. Advanced analysis libraries from data acquisi-
tion to data analysis with mathematical and statistical tool-
boxes can be added to user-defined programs to build appli-
cations. The flexibility of LabVIEW in generating user-specific
objects also provides control over the image acquisition phase.
An IMAQ PCI 1408 image acquisition board was controlled
with a LabVIEW generated application that was combined
with BMAD to generate a interface program that could be used
for image analysis as well as image acquisition. Depending on
the displacement rate of the shear device, BMAD is able to
perform real-time analysis on the captured frames using larger
macro block sizes. With a 200 MHz PC, this approach put

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FIG. 4. Main Steps in Algorithm of BMAD
significant limitations on the number of frames acquired and
processed per second and the selection of the suitable macro
block size, even though the IMAQ PCI 1408 has an acquisi-
tion rate of 30 frames/s. This restriction was eliminated by
first saving all necessary image frames onto a disk and sub-
sequently analyzing them. This allowed the selection of vari-
ous image acquisition rates and macro block sizes for the var-
ious tests conducted at different displacement rates.
ALTERNATIVE METHOD FOR PARTICLE TRACKING —
MATCH
Considering that granular particles are accumulations of
rigid particle groups, their motions under loading conditions
can be regarded as coupled rotations and translations within
the media, unless the loading conditions lead to significant
particle deformation or breakage. Based on this observation,
the displacement fields of granular particles were determined
using digital image analysis techniques on the captured image
frames in a certain time interval. To track individual particles
using this method requires determining the particle centroid
locations. Particle overlapping can cause tracked particles to
be temporarily hidden between successive images. This situ-
ation requires significant effort from the user to ‘‘find’’ the
‘‘lost’’ particle in the subsequent images. The algorithm de-
veloped for MATCH is, on the other hand, capable of auto-
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / APRIL 1999 / 119
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 1999, 13(2): 116-122
matically matching the marker particles that are being tracked
sequentially between the image frames.
To reduce the overlapping, dark marker particles were dis-
persed into the interface region where the successive image
frames were captured. A foundry sand was used because of its
homogeneous black color that makes it easy to differentiate in
a digital display even if it is mixed with other granular ma-
terials. The foundry sand had a grain shape and size similar
to that of the Ottawa sand used in the test. Because segmen-
tation by the thresholding technique was used in the analysis
of frames, the use of the foundry sand particles was mandatory
to generate the necessary contrast relative to the background
particles. An edge detection algorithm, which is another com-
monly used method for segmentation, could be considered an-
other approach to overcome the overlapping problem without
using the dark sand particles; however, the algorithm yields
boundary discontinuities generated at low contrast regions
where the boundary pixel intensities are not sufficiently dif-
ferentiable. The analysis of image frames was performed using
the digital image analysis and processing software Global Lab
Image (GLOBAL 1994), which employs the thresholding seg-
mentation technique. Each frame was analyzed, and particle
centroids and orientations relative to the horizontal axis were
recorded into a data file. MATCH was then used to calculate
the translations and the rotations of the segmented particles for
every successive frame. Even though rotations can be calcu-
lated using MATCH, they are limited to only in-plane motions
and are not discussed in detail here.
Computation of Particle Displacements
Particle displacements were computed based on the center
point coordinates of the areas of the particles generated by the
image analysis and processing software, Global Lab Image.
Particle displacements defined in MATCH can be given by the
following equation:
⌬X = Xn,k⫹1 ⫺ Xm,k; ⌬Y = Yn,k⫹1 ⫺ Ym,k (5a,b)
where ⌬X and ⌬Y = displacements in the X and Y directions,
respectively; and n and m indicate the particle numbers in
frame k and frame k ⫹ 1, respectively.
Description of Algorithm Built Into MATCH
MATCH was developed in the Matlab environment in text
format, having subfiles for the analysis of the input data as
well as the presentation of the results. Matlab (Student 1995)
is a powerful programming language oriented to scientific
computation using data elements in matrix form. A sketch of
the filtering algorithms for MATCH is given in Fig. 5. As
indicated in the figure, there are four levels of filter algorithms
built to match particles between two sequentially acquired im-
ages. In the first-level filter, particles are matched based on a
minimum translation criterion. This criterion is defined as the
particles in the previous frame that match the particles in the
next frame having the smallest translation relative to the pre-
vious frame. The results of this operation are described in Fig.
6 as matching particle 1 with particle 5, particle 2 with particle
5, particle 3 with void 8, and void 4 with void 7. Because of
the overlapping problem in the image frames, some particles
may be lost in the next frame, and the first-level filter may
result in some particles in the previous frame that were
matched with only one particle in the next frame. This con-
dition is also shown in Fig. 6 as the matching of particle 2
with particle 5 even though particle 2 is further away relative
to particle 5 as compared with the location of particle 1. This
discrepancy is eliminated using the second-level filter based
on the results of the first-level filter. Because the regions be-
tween particles (voids) are also defined as particles in the anal-
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FIG. 5. Filtering Algorithms in Track
FIG. 6. Implementation of Algorithms on Two Schematic Im-
ages
ysis phase, it is required to eliminate particle-void or void-
void matching combinations from the results of the first- as
well as the second-level filtering operations. This is achieved
by two additional filters applied to the resultant data obtained
from the first- and second-level filters (Guler 1997).
Comparison of both algorithms was made on Ottawa sand
particles in a modified direct shear test. Ottawa sand has a
quartz crystalline structure that is nearly transparent under
lighting, which makes detection of particles difficult during
image analysis, unlike dark marker particles. The accuracy of
the block-based matching technique, therefore, was measured
and evaluated at very non-uniform grayscale distribution im-
ages. The use of the marker sand would significantly increase
the contrast; however, in terms of testing the generality of the
technique for use with different granular materials without any
manual effort and laboratory manipulations, it was decided to
use Ottawa sand. Image acquisition was performed using a
high magnification zoom microscope camera at 640 ⫻ 480
resolution and a rate of 1 frame per 5 seconds. The displace-
ment rate for the shear device was adjusted to 1.2 mm/min.
An interface plate that was machined with a 45⬚ sawtooth pat-
tern having a peak-to-peak distance of 1 mm was placed into
the shear box and leveled with the bottom horizontal side of
the image frames so that a clear view of particles could be
obtained during the image acquisition. An example of an im-
age frame acquired during the test is shown in Fig. 7. Prior to
the image analysis, an edge detection algorithm was applied
to detect particle boundaries. This operation was necessary,
because the thresholding technique is quite limited for particle
segmentation especially for translucent Ottawa particles. The
discontinuities on the particle boundaries were manually com-
pleted and the image analysis was performed to obtain particle
120 / JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / APRIL 1999
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 1999, 13(2): 116-122
FIG. 7. Image of Ottawa Sand in Contact with Steel Plate
centroids using Global Lab Image. The particle translations
were then calculated by MATCH and the results were plotted
as shown in Fig. 8. The same image frames were also analyzed
by BMAD using 12 ⫻ 16, 24 ⫻ 32, and 48 ⫻ 32 macro block
sizes and an optimal 10-pixel side length that corresponds to
a 10 ⫻ 10 pixels search area, computed based on (4). The best
fitting macro block size was found to be 24 ⫻ 32, based on
the visual comparison of the selected macro block size with
the average particle size in the frames. The calculated results
for this macro block are shown on the same plots in Fig. 8 to
compare the results obtained from MATCH using the same
image frames.
The results for both algorithms show agreement in the mag-
nitude as well as the direction of the translations for all of the
analyzed image frames. It should be noted that both algorithms
detected the local particle displacements with consistency in
their magnitudes as well as directions. This implies a high
sensitivity of the algorithms to rapid local changes within the
displacement fields, which is of primary importance in under-
standing the flow behavior of granular materials. The displace-
ment patterns shown in Fig. 8 appear to be in excellent agree-
ment with similar work reported by Hryciw and Irsyam
(1993).
The results from both methods indicate that the magnitudes
of the displacement vectors close to the interface zone seem
to be larger relative to the locations away from the interface.
The vertical distributions of the vertical and horizontal dis-
placements within the sand adjacent to the structure interface
are shown by plotting the average horizontal particle displace-
ments computed at macro block locations for all captured im-
age frames in Fig. 9. It is apparent that the horizontal particle
displacements increase from the sand specimen top down to
the interface zone, conforming to the expected relative differ-
ences in displacement fields within the shear box. The vertical
components, however, show smaller translations in magnitude
and tend to decrease in the interface region. This plot can be
used to evaluate displacement fields for different granular ma-
terials and the effect of particle texture, shape, and size char-
acteristics as well as structural surface characteristics such as
roughness can be investigated at different displacement rates
and loading conditions. The noticeable differences in the re-
sults of the algorithms are due to the fact that the translations
in the block matching method can only be represented by in-
teger numbers (i.e., the number of pixels), whereas the results
obtained on particle basis analysis can be fractions, which are
essentially calculated from the first-order moments of particle
areas. On the other hand, higher accuracy in the results of
BMAD could be obtained by increasing the number of frames
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FIG. 8. Calculated Displacement Vectors for Image Frame Shown in Fig. 7 (10 Times Scaled Displacement Vectors for Visual Clarity)
captured per second that can eliminate the effects of accu-
mulated noise and other test variables between frames. The
noise generated from the hardware system as well as the light-
ing conditions were measured to be around 6 pixel grayscale
levels (out of 256 pixel gray-scale levels) during the image
acquisition. Using the frame averaging technique, it was re-
duced to 2 gray-scale levels before recording the image
frames. However, the generated displacement vectors using the
block-based matching method were successful in capturing
rapid deformations with an acceptable bias.
CONCLUSIONS
Determination of particle displacements by means of the
digital image analysis techniques was investigated using two
different approaches: the particle matching analysis with
MATCH and the block-based matching method implemented
in BMAD. Both algorithms were tested and evaluated in terms
of their efficiency, accuracy, and practicality in the study of
particle displacements using sequences of images of deforming
Ottawa sand particles. The following observations can be
made in terms of the developed methods:
1. The algorithm for MATCH, based on the particle seg-
mentation technique, may not be practical at low contrast
images produced by granular materials having transpar-
ent crystalline structures (e.g., Ottawa sand) or poor
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING IN CIVIL ENGINEERING / APRIL 1999 / 121
J. Comput. Civ. Eng., 1999, 13(2): 116-122
lighting conditions because of the difficulty in the seg-
mentation process. However, it can be efficiently used by
spreading dark sand particles, e.g., foundry sand parti-
cles, at the interface region to help detect displacement
fields. Dark foundry sand particles are easily distinguish-
able from the other granular materials and produce high
contrast in digital images that can minimize the manual
work for the restoration of boundary discontinuities prior
to the image analysis. Although this method of particle
tracking is reliable, only a limited number of particles
can be analyzed due to significant loss resulting from the
overlapping problem.
2. BMAD is fairly effective and efficient in analysis of im-
age frames without rigorous hardware requirements. It
does not include manual modification of already captured
frames, and the algorithm use is fully computerized,
which speeds up the acquisition, analysis, and presenta-
tion of the results. In addition, the algorithm is capable
of detecting particle displacements nearly equivalent to
the particle segmentation technique, provided that the re-
quired input parameters (macro block size and search
window) are defined appropriately. The measurement of
noise in the acquisition system showed that the lighting
condition and hardware system can produce a certain
range of change in the pixel intensity levels, which may
affect the accuracy of results that are generated by the
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FIG. 9. Distribution of Average Horizontal and Vertical Displacements for Image Frame Shown in Fig. 7
block-based matching method at high noise levels. In this
case, the frame-averaging technique can be employed to
reduce the noise for the stability of the analysis results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was performed with financial support from the National
Science Foundation Grant CMS-9302281 and U.S. Air Force Office of
Scientific Research Grant MIPR-93-0031. The Turkish Ministry of Na-
tional Education provided financial support to the first writer. The con-
tributions of Mr. Seyfullah Oguz and Mr. Keith Ligler are also gratefully
acknowledged.
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