An optical flow-based method for velocity field of fluid flow estimation

Grzegorz Głomb; Grzegorz Świrniak; Janusz Mroczka

doi:10.1117/12.2270086

26 June 2017 An optical flow-based method for velocity field of fluid flow estimation

Grzegorz Głomb, Grzegorz Świrniak, Janusz Mroczka

Proceedings Volume 10329, Optical Measurement Systems for Industrial Inspection X; 103293P (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2270086
Event: SPIE Optical Metrology, 2017, Munich, Germany

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a method for estimating flow-velocity vector fields using the Lucas-Kanade algorithm. The optical flow measurements are based on the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique, which is commonly used in fluid mechanics laboratories in both research institutes and industry. Common approaches for an optical characterization of velocity fields base on computation of partial derivatives of the image intensity using finite differences. Nevertheless, the accuracy of velocity field computations is low due to the fact that an exact estimation of spatial derivatives is very difficult in presence of rapid intensity changes in the PIV images, caused by particles having small diameters. The method discussed in this paper solves this problem by interpolating the PIV images using Gaussian radial basis functions. This provides a significant improvement in the accuracy of the velocity estimation but, more importantly, allows for the evaluation of the derivatives in intermediate points between pixels. Numerical analysis proves that the method is able to estimate even a separate vector for each particle with a 5× 5 px² window, whereas a classical correlation-based method needs at least 4 particle images. With the use of a specialized multi-step hybrid approach to data analysis the method improves the estimation of the particle displacement far above 1 px.

Citation Download Citation

Grzegorz Głomb, Grzegorz Świrniak, and Janusz Mroczka "An optical flow-based method for velocity field of fluid flow estimation", Proc. SPIE 10329, Optical Measurement Systems for Industrial Inspection X, 103293P (26 June 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2270086

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