Metals and Materials International

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12540-019-00380-6

Grain Boundaries and Phases Identification of Metallographic Images

by a Normalized Sobel Operation and the Edge Thinning Process
for Further Numerical Simulation
G. Domínguez‑Rodríguez1 · J. A. González‑Sánchez1 · J. Rosado‑Carrasco1 · G. Canto1 

Received: 11 May 2019 / Accepted: 14 July 2019

© The Korean Institute of Metals and Materials 2019

Abstract
The recognitions of phases and precise grain boundaries based on metallographic images are useful for conducting micro-
mechanical simulations, such as finite element analysis and peridynamics. In this work, those processes are automatized by
using a Sobel operator for identifying edges, which is normalized by different proposed Gaussian filters (on intensity, rugosity,
or both). After that, a threshold is used to discretize the edges. Different neighboring pixel configurations, sensitive to edge
intensity, are proposed for thinning and cleaning the discretized edges, and hence, grain boundaries with a one-pixel thick-
ness are obtained. Then, the phase is selected by averaging color of each delimited grain. Finally, the precision on the phase
recognition was found to increase from 75.61 to 83.6% for the unmodified and the normalized Sobel operator, respectively.

Keywords  Sobel · Edge recognition · Edge thinning · Metallography · Peridynamics

1 Introduction mechanical properties, such as the resistance to fatigue dam-

Austenitic-ferritic duplex stainless steels (DSS) are engi-
neering alloys with high resistance to localized corrosion
and superior mechanical strength when compared with the
austenitic or ferritic single stainless steels [1, 2]. These prop-
erties make DSS suitable materials for use in the chemical
and petrochemical industries. The AISI 2205 DSS with a
nearly 50/50 phase ratio, presents combined characteris-
tics of both steel alloys with excellent weldability [3–6].
However, those alloys are prone to undergo microstructural
changes during operation at high temperatures, or as a result
of thermal cycles when they are subjected to fusion weld-
ing. The most affected area known as the heat affected zone
(HAZ), is particularly prone to undergo localized attacks
such as pitting, crevice, and intergranular corrosion [7,
8]. Due to the heating at temperatures above 550 °C, DSS
undergo the generation of undesired intermetallic phases and
carbides precipitation which has a detrimental effect on the
* G. Canto
gcanto@uacam.mx
1 more modern methods, such as neural networks trained in path
Centro de Investigación en Corrosión, Universidad
Autónoma de Campeche, Av. Héroe de Nacozari 480,
24079 Campeche, Campeche, Mexico
age [8]. The undesirable microstructure evolution induced
in DSS conveys economical and safety repercussions, there-
fore, the prediction of the mechanical behavior of this alloy
based on their micromechanical structure is of great signifi-
cance. Several mathematical models and simulation methods
have been reported, such as the Peridynamics and the Finite
Element Analysis (FEA) [9–12].
One important structural integrity property for prediction
is the crack initiation and propagation in the early stages
of damage, for which, several methods have been proposed
to model it in conjunction with FEA such as phase field
model, extended finite element or cohesive zones [13–15].
In the later, the edges where crack are expected to nucle-
ate or propagated does not directly share nodes, but they
are kept in place by cohesive tractions [15]. Therefore, the
representative volume element will behave as a continuum
model until certain conditions are achieved at interfaces,
commonly a maximum traction or a maximum deforma-
tion, consequently, designing a tool for finding precise grain
boundaries is worthy.
One popular method for edge recognition is the Sobel filter
[16, 17], which consists of two image convolutions. Even when
recognition, are currently available [18–20], they often lead to

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higher computational requirements, in comparison to convolu- A is the image to be processed. Then, the Sobel operator
tion methods, such as the Sobel operator. magnitude ( G ) is obtained as,
Nevertheless, in this work, some improvements for the √
Sobel operator have been proposed in order to increase effi- G = G2x + G2y
ciency without drastically increasing the computational
capacity. Then, an intensity threshold was chosen for defining
which pixels will become part of the edges. Nevertheless,
for a high-intensity threshold, the edges can be rendered
2 Methodology highly discontinuous, whereas a low-intensity threshold
yields more edges than necessary. In order to reduce the
In the present work, the generation process of representa- number of discontinuities without drastically increasing the
tive volume elements (RVE) for Duplex 2205 stainless steel number of edges, some additional steps are proposed.
from metallographic images is automatized. Those RVEs will The first proposed step consists on taking advantage of
be designed for further use in Peridynamics, finite element the fact that the Sobel operator is derivative, and therefore,
analysis, or both calculations. For this purpose, the edges for it is a linear operator, which means that darker areas are
delimiting the grain boundaries are obtained and expected to inferred to have a lower Sobel operator magnitude in com-
be one pixel thick, and only two phases are considered, ferritic parison to lighter areas. This step consists of normalizing
and austenitic. the results of the Sobel operator by the Gaussian average of
The phase and edge recognition are implemented in a the original image. This process, which will be referred as
C++ main routine and different Shading Language scripts, intensity normalization, in this work, consists of applying
those scripts are compiled and then executed in the graphics an image convolution with a Gaussian kernel to the original
processing unit instead of the central processing unit. metallography to obtain an image of a localized average for
each pixel, which is, then, used for normalizing the Sobel
2.1 Edge Detection Procedure operator magnitude. This step is added to reduce further dis-
crepancies between darker and lighter areas, where the edges
The edge detection is conducted through several steps; being located on darker areas are rendered as less intense by the
the first one the use of a differential operator known as the Sobel operator, disregarding how prominent those edges are.
Sobel operator [16, 17], which is conduct in two steps: first, The Gaussian kernels have been widely used for blurring
two image convolutions are applied to an image, each of them images, and they are n × n matrix similar to those used with
with a different kernel, one for vertical edges and another for the Sobel operator, where n is an odd number, and each
horizontal ones, which are obtained as follows: (matrix component
) follows a Gaussian function center on
, 2 component and the sum of all them equals one.
n+1 n+1
⎡ −1 −3 −3 0 3 3 1 ⎤ 2
⎢ −4 −11 −13 0 13 11 4 ⎥ Another proposed step consists on normalizing the results
⎢ −9 −26 −30 0 30 26 9 ⎥ of the Sobel operator by its Gaussian average and will be
⎢ ⎥
Gx = ⎢ −13 −34 −40 0 40 34 13 ⎥ ∗ A named rugosity normalization. The process is similar to the
⎢ −9 −26 −30 0 30 26 9 ⎥ previous one, except that, in order to obtain the reference for
⎢ −4 −11 −13 0 13 11 4 ⎥⎥ further averaging, the Sobel operator magnitude is convo-
⎢
⎣ −1 −3 −3 0 3 3 1 ⎦ luted with the Gaussian kernel instead of the original image.
This step is added to compensate the changes of detail along
a single image, whereas some areas are sharper, others are
more blurred. It is recommended to use larger kernels when
⎡ −1 −4 −9 −13 −9 −4 −1 ⎤
⎢ −3 −11 −26 −34 −26 −11 −3 ⎥ metallographic images with higher resolution and large vari-
⎢ −3 −13 −30 −4 −30 −13 −3 ⎥ ations on definition are processed.
⎢ ⎥
Gy = ⎢ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥∗A
⎢ 3 13 30 4 30 13 3 ⎥ 2.2 Procedure for Edge Thinning and Deletion
⎢ 3 3 ⎥⎥
⎢ 11 26 34 26 11 of Loose Ends
⎣ 1 4 9 13 9 4 1 ⎦
In order to delimitate areas by edges with a thickness of a
pixel, a process for thinning the previously obtained edges
where ∗ stands for a convolution operator, and Gx and Gy
and reducing the undesired noise is applied. For that pur-
are the matrix for the horizontal and vertical components,
pose, several algorithms have already being proposed and
respectively, both kernels are the 7 × 7 Sobel operators, and
widely used for thinning features on binary images [21, 22].

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However, being designed exclusively for processing binary
images, those methods do not account for the intensities on
edges (rugosity), which is information previously obtained
as the Sobel operator magnitude. Therefore, for taking
advantage of the availability of this map of edge intensity
and preserving the areas where the edges are most stressed,
a new method is proposed. Herein, some edge pixels are
removed from edges if they are adjacent to both a pixel not
belonging to the edges and another one whose Sobel opera-
tor magnitude is higher than that of the pixel chosen to be
removed. Such pixels removal must be conducted while the
generation of edge discontinuities is prevented. In order to
achieve this task, eight configurations of neighboring pix-
els are proposed, and when one of those is achieved, the
evaluated pixel is deleted (removed). Those neighboring
configurations are shown in Fig. 1, where a black box rep-
resents the tested pixel, rhombus-filled boxes are pixels that
are part of the edges and whose intensity is higher than that
of the evaluated pixel, boxes filled with diagonal lines are
pixels that, at least, one of them must be part of the edges,
white boxes represent pixels that are not part of the edges,
and, finally, gray boxes are indistinct ones. The process is
conducted for all pixels and is repeated until no additional
pixels are removed.
Before suppressing loose ends, both the empty pixels sur-
rounded by edge pixels and those close to limits of the image
should be filled. The filling of empty pixels surrounded
Fig. 1  Configurations of neighboring pixels for deleting edge pixels
during the thinning step. Black represents evaluated pixels, rhombus-
filling pattern represents pixels belonging to the edges, diagonal lines
filling pattern stands for pixels of which, at least, one should be part
others that are already part of the edges is conducted by
adding them to the edges in order to prevent the generation
of additional edges by later processes. On the other hand,
the completion of loose ends close to the boundaries of the
image is conducted by adding the necessary pixels to con-
nect the edges to the boundaries. This completion is needed
because the Sobel operator magnitude is lower at the image
limits, and this process will prevent the removal deletion of
large sections of the edges considered as loose ends.
Then, loose ends and noise are removed. For that pur-
pose, several algorithms have already been proposed, which
are commonly intended for cleaning scanned documents
and drawings [23–28]. Those algorithms are exceptional
at removing the commonly-called salt and pepper noise.
However, the capability of removing loose ends is useful
for further phase recognition, since they do not contribute
in delimiting areas. Therefore, a kFill method based on the
kFill filter [23, 24] is proposed. In the present method, addi-
tional neighboring pixel configurations are choosen specifi-
cally for deleting edges belonging to loose ends or isolated
noise. Figures 2a, d present have already been for remov-
ing loose ends, while Figs. 2a, h are those configurations
for deleting thick isolated noise. The schematic patterns
used to illustrate those neighboring pixel configurations are
similar to those shown in Fig. 1 for edge thinning, how-
ever the rhombus-filled boxes stand for pixels whose Sobel
operator magnitude is not necessarily higher than that of the
of the edges, White represents pixels that do not belong to the edges
and gray are indistinct pixels. a From the left, b from the left top cor-
ner, c from above, d from the right top corner, e from the right, f from
the right bottom corner, g from below, h from the left bottom corner
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Fig. 2  Neighboring pixel configurations for removing edge pixels
during the deletion of loose ends and isolated edge noise. The black
box represents the evaluated pixel, rhombus-filled ones are pixels that
must be part of the edges, white boxes stands for pixels that are not
part of the edges, and diagonal and vertical lines patterned boxes are
pixels of which, at least, one must be either part of the edges (diago-
evaluated pixel, and vertical and diagonal lines patterned
boxes represent pixels of which, at least, one of them must
be either part of the edges (diagonal lines) or an empty one
(vertical ones). This process is iterative and is repeated until
no additional pixels are removed from the edges.
The last step consists in emptying large continuum areas
marked as part of the edges. In order to achieve this, a sim-
ple neighboring pixel configuration is used, it consists of
unmarked edge pixels if their top, bottom, left and right
neighbor pixels are part of the edges.
2.3 Selective Blur and Phase Threshold
Once the edges have been thinned and the loose ends and
noise have been removed, a selective blur is applied, which
consists on assign the average color of their four closest
neighbors (up, down, left, and right) as long as those were
not part of the edges. This process is repeated until each area
delimited by edges is rendered homogeneous.
Once the color for each zone is homogenized, representa-
tive points are manually selected for color reference; those
points encompass ferritic, austenitic, and possibly other
areas. Finally, the phase of each area is obtained by using
the reference colors interpolated for each phase by using
the manually selected points. The reason for using inter-
polated reference colors is due to colors of each phase in a
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nal lines) or left unmarked (vertical lines). a Thinning process from
above. b Thinning process from the left. c Thinning process from
below. d Thinning process from the right. e Deletion of thick edges
from the left bottom corner. f Deletion of thick edges from the right
bottom corner. g Deletion of thick edges from the right top corner. h
Deletion of thick edges from the left top corner
metallography varying, along a single metallography, as a
consequence of optical aberrations, inhomogeneous chemi-
cal treatment and an inconsistent illumination of some opti-
cal microscopes.
2.4 Surface Preparation and Microstructural
Characterization of Samples
The samples of AISI 2205 Duplex stainless steel in the as-
received condition were obtained from transversal, superior,
and along-to-the-rolling direction planes. Also, the samples
of the welded joints were obtained from transversal sections
to the welding direction. The surfaces were subjected to an
electrochemical etching in an aqueous solution of 30% nitric
acid, applying a 2-V electric field for ten seconds after stand-
ard metallographic preparation.
3 Results
3.1 Edge Detection
Before predicting the grain boundaries and phases on full-
size metallographic images, preliminary results, based on
a metallographic sample, was used for illustrating all dif-
ferent steps in the prediction process. The sample image is
Metals and Materials International
illustrated in grayscale in Fig. 3a, while Fig. 3b, c show
the horizontal and vertical components of the Sobel opera-
tor, where gray represents a zero value, white stands for the
largest positive value and black represents the largest nega-
tive value. Whereas Fig. 3d illustrates the Sobel operator
magnitude, where black stand for zero magnitude and white
represents the highest value.
The level of the threshold applied on the Sobel opera-
tor magnitude greatly affects the edges, rendering them
(a)
(d)
(g)
Fig. 3  a Original Image, b Sobel horizontal component, c Sobel ver-
tical component, d Sobel operator magnitude, e Sobel operator mag-
nitude with a low reference value of intensity threshold (discontinui-
discontinuous (see Fig. 3e) for a high threshold or generat-
ing additional edges (see Fig. 3f) for a low threshold. As
previously stated, the Sobel operator magnitude is nor-
malized (see Fig. 3g) and then the threshold is applied,
in order to reduce the number of discontinuities while
the generation of additional edges is also prevented (see
Fig. 3h).
(b) (c)
(e) (f)
(h)
ties are circled), f Sobel operator magnitude with a high reference
value of intensity threshold, g normalized Sobel operator magnitude,
h normalized Sobel operator magnitude with an intensity threshold
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3.2 Edge Thinning and Deletion of Loose Ends
The aforementioned thinning process was applied to the pre-
viously processed sample image (Fig. 3h), and the results are
shown in Fig. 4a, where a substantial refinement of edges
is observed. After the thinning process, the pixels close to
the image limits and those surrounded by pixels belonging
to the edges are filled, both cases can be seen in Fig. 4b
enclosed in circles. Then, the loose ends and edge noise
presented in Fig. 4b can be removed, see Fig. 4c and com-
pare with Fig. 3b. Finally, the removal of large edge areas is
conducted; its result is presented in Fig. 4d.
3.3 Selective Blur and Phase Threshold
A selective blur was conducted on the previously processed
image, illustrated in Fig.  5a, where the edge pixels are
marked in black, and the result of this blur is presented in
Fig. 5b, where the color for each delimited area has been
homogenized.
The interpolated reference color, used for choosing
phases, can be perceived in Fig. 5c, where the selected
(a)
Fig. 4  a Thinning of edges based on the intensities of the Sobel operator magnitude, b filling of empty pixels surrounded by edge marked pixels,
c deletion of loose ends and isolated edge noise, d removal of large edge marked areas
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reference spot for ferritic areas is highlighted. Herein, only
one manually selected reference point was necessary; how-
ever, having more than one can be required for some metal-
lographic images with optical aberrations or variations in
illumination. The inferred phases are illustrated in Fig. 5d,
where ferritic areas are the highlight in a blue hue.
3.4 Prediction of Grain Boundaries and Phases
on Full‑Size Metallographic Images
Once each step of the proposed algorithm was implemented,
it was tested on several metallographic images of Duplex
2205 stainless steel. Those results can be observed in
Fig. 6a, c, e, g, from which grain boundaries are delimited,
and phases are inferred through the aforementioned meth-
odology. Those results are shown in Fig. 6b, d, f, h, where
grain boundaries are delimited by black lines, whereas the
phases are shaded by red (ferrite) or blue (austenite). A fact
worth important to highlight the fact that Fig. 6g shows a
metallographic image of a welded joint with a low contrast,
whose phases were satisfactorily identified, see Fig. 6h.
(b) (c)
(d)
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Fig. 5  a Original image with highlight edges (black), b selective blur, c interpolated reference color for ferritic phases, d ferritic (blue) and aus-
tenitic (white) phases in the sample image. (Color figure online)

a b c d

e f
g h

Fig. 6  Original metallographic images (a, c, e, g) and grain boundaries and phases found through the automatization process (b, d, f, h), where
the grain boundaries are highlight in black, red shaded zones are austenitic, and blue ones represent ferritic zones. (Color figure online)

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A comparison with other authors’ works using electron
backscatter diffraction (EBSD) was conducted [29, 30]. This
method is highly accurate and produces a map of phases,
which was pixel-wise compared with the phases obtained by
the proposed methodology, then, the precision was obtained
as the percentage of pixels whose phase matched between
both methods. This precision was found to be 90.23% with
a standard deviation of 2.2%.
The proposed methodology was also compared with
results, where no map of phases was present, but the austen-
ite/ferrite content was stated and obtained by several meth-
ods, such as EBSD, X-Ray, and Manual [3, 31–35]. The
average discrepancy between the austenite content found
in those works and the content predicted by the proposed
methodology was 6.3% with a standard deviation of 3.67%.
3.5 Assessment of the Influence of Normalization
Methods on Phase Recognition
In order to further assess the precision of each variation of
the proposed methodology, a metallographic sample was
selected, whose edges and phases were manually defined,
and then, a pixel-wise comparison was conducted between
the phases obtained following the proposed methodology
and those manually defined. The precision was calculated as
the percentage of pixels whose phases matched between the
image manually obtained and that following the proposed
methodology. The sample image and the target image with
the manually assigned phases can be observed in Figs. 7a,
b, respectively.
For each methodology, different edge detection thresholds
were tested, and the one yielding the best precision, was
selected. Those precisions are shown in Fig. 8a–c.
The precision of the Sobel operator without any normali-
zation was found to be 75.61% (see dashed line in Figs. 8a,
b). Then, an intensity normalization previous to the Sobel
operator was added, and the precision as a function of the
Fig. 7  a Sample image for conducting the precision analysis, b target
image, where the phases were manually assigned
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size of the Gaussian kernel is illustrated in Fig.  8a. An
improvement on the precision as high as 81.7% was achieved
with a 3 × 3 Gaussian kernel. The precision gradually drops
when larger Gaussian kernels were used. Nevertheless, the
precision for a 19 × 19 Gaussian kernel (77.09%) was still
higher than that of the unnormalized Sobel operator.
Figure 8b shows a precision analysis when the Sobel
operator magnitude is normalized by its Gaussian average
magnitude (rugosity), which was conducted for different
kernel sizes. Again, higher precisions for the normalized
Sobel operator were found in comparison to the one of the
unnormalized version. The highest precision was 77.03% for
9 × 9 and 14 × 14 Gaussian kernels. However, this increase
is lesser than the one obtained for a Sobel operator with an
intensity normalization and a 3 × 3 Gaussian kernel.
Further tests were conducted decreasing the weight of the
normalization process by raising the Gaussian average mag-
nitude to a power smaller than one. Herein, powers of 0.7,
0.8, and 0.9 were employed. The precision for each chosen
power as a function of the size of the Gaussian kernel is also
shown in Fig. 8b. Here, an increase in precision was present
for small kernels, being 77.08% the highest precisions for
a power of 0.9 at an 11 × 11 Gaussian kernel, 77.12% for a
power of 0.8 at an 11 × 11, and 77.45% for a power of 0.7 at
a 5 × 5 Gaussian kernel.
Finally, the rugosity normalization process was conducted
on the previously intensity-normalized Sobel operator with a
3 × 3 Gaussian kernel. The precision as a function of the size
of the Gaussian kernel is shown in Fig. 8c, where the results
are compared to that of a Sobel operator with the intensity
normalization only. The rugosity normalizations carried out
with an integer power always yielded precisions lower than
the one with an intensity normalization and a 3 × 3 Gauss-
ian kernel. However, the rugosity normalization conducted
with the Sobel operator magnitude raised to powers of 0.7
and 0.8 presented higher precisions than the reference (the
one of a Sobel operator normalized only with intensity),
being 83.6% the highest precision for an intensity normal-
ized Sobel operator when a rugosity normalization is applied
with a 5 × 5 Gaussian kernel.
When larger images are processed, the same intensity
normalization process previously applied on the small sam-
ple (Fig. 7a) are still yielding accurate results. However, the
rugosity normalization with small Gaussian kernels, used
on the sample of Fig. 9a, presented a reduced precision for
images with larger resolutions. For example, Fig. 9a presents
an image sample with a pixel resolution of 858 × 697, took
from Topolska et al. [34], where dark and light areas are
pointed out, and a particularly blurred area is also marked.
When the process is conducted on Topolska’s sample, using
an intensity normalization with a 3 × 3 Gaussian kernel,
and a rugosity normalization with a 5 × 5 Gaussian kernel,
whose magnitude is raised to the 0.7 power, the threshold
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Fig. 8  Precision between the target image and variations of the pro-
posed methodology. a Precision as a function of the normalization of
intensity, b precision as a function of the normalization of rugosity,
necessary for closing up all edges, delimiting the austenite/
ferrite areas, also produced a large amount of edges enclos-
ing undesired areas, see Fig. 9b. Whereas, when a 61 × 61
Gaussian kernel was used for the rugosity normalization,
and the intensity normalization was kept intact, the amount
of undesired areas was greatly reduced, without losing conti-
nuity on the blurred areas, see Figure c. This trend continued
for an intensity normalization with a 121 × 121 Gaussian
kernel, which produced even less undesired areas. There-
fore, larger Gaussian kernels are advised for metallographic
images with high resolutions and different levels of detail,
whereas the additional computational burden will only be
c precision as a function of the normalization of rugosity when nor-
malization of intensity is also applied
affecting one of the steps of the proposed algorithms. The
present code and executable are available under request.
4 Conclusions
The process for finding the grain boundary and identifying
the austenite and ferrite phases from metallographic images
of duplex 2205 stainless steel was automatized, first, through
a Sobel operator method, and an improved version was pro-
posed through normalizing the results by its local intensity
average. Then, a sequence of post-process was conducted.
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(a)
(c)
Fig. 9  a Original metallographic image took from Topolska et  al.
[34] (with permission of IMT publisher), and grain boundaries and
phases found by using a rugosity normalization with b a 5 × 5 Gauss-
First, an intensity threshold, which was applied for delimit-
ing the edges that define the grain boundaries, then an edge
thinning is applied, in order to have grain boundaries with
a thickness of one pixel between phases. After all grain’s
regions were delimited, edge segments forming loose ends,
isolated noise, or both are deleted. Finally, in order to assign
a phase to each delimited grain, their colors were averaged
and compared with a reference color, which can vary along
the metallographic image in order to compensate optical
aberrations presented on the image.
A comparison was carried out between the original Sobel
operator and several proposed normalized versions of the
Sobel operator. Each comparison is conducted at a pixel-
wise level between the phases identified by each variation on
the algorithm and those manually determined. Sobel opera-
tors with a Gaussian normalization on either intensity or
rugosity yielded better results than the 75.61% precision of
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(b)
(d)
ian kernel, c a 61 × 61 Gaussian kernel, and d a 121 × 121 Gaussian
kernel, where the grain boundaries are highlight in black, ferrite is
hued in green, and austenite is highlight in red. (Color figure online)
a Sobel operator without any normalization, of whom, an
intensity normalization with a 3 × 3 Gaussian Kernel was the
better single-normalization method with an 81.7% precision.
Finally, several tests for Sobel operator, with both intensity
and rugosity normalizations, were carried out, and preci-
sion as high as 83.6% was found. The importance of using
larger Gaussian kernels for high-resolution metallographies
with different levels of detail along a single image was also
pointed out. This is due to the fact that the 3 × 3 Gaussian
filter useful in small metallographic images yielded a large
amount of undesired delimited areas in large images with a
non-homogenous quality.
A pixel-wise comparison was also possible between the
phases other author’s obtained by using EBSD and the pro-
posed methodology using the same images and a 90.23%
likelihood was found with a standard deviation of 2.2%.
Another comparison was conducted between the reported
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percentage of austenite content found by other authors, using
different methods, and the proposed methodology conducted
on their one images. The average discrepancy was found to
be 6.3% with a standard deviation of 3.67%.
The automatization process presented, and their results
are suitable for further finite element analysis and peridy-
namics computations, where defined phases and interphases
are necessary for meshing, modeling dislocations movement
as well as intrusions and extrusions formed at the between
grain phase boundaries.
Acknowledgements  The authors acknowledge the Centro de Inves-
tigación en Corrosión of the Universidad Autónoma de Campeche
for easing this work. This study has been funded by the Secretaría de
Educación Pública of México, under the Project 511-6/18-8491 of the
Apoyo a la incorporación de NPTC.
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