Skip to main content

Size from Specular Highlights for Analyzing Droplet Size Distributions

  • Conference paper
Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns (CAIP 2009)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 5702))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 2317 Accesses

Abstract

In mechanical engineering, heat-transfer models by dropwise condensation are under development. The condensation process is captured by taking many pictures, which show the formation of droplets, of which the size distribution and area coverage are of interest for model improvement. The current analysis method relies on manual measurements, which is time consuming. In this paper, we propose an approach to automatically extract the positions and radii of the droplets from an image. Our method relies on specular highlights that are visible on the surfaces of the droplets. We show that these highlights can be reliably extracted, and that they provide sufficient information to infer the droplet size. The results obtained by our method compare favorably with those obtained by laborious and careful manual measurements. The processing time per image is reduced by two orders of magnitude.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Schmidt, E., Schurig, W., Sellschop, W.: Versuche über die kondensation von wasserdampf in film - und tropfenform. Tech. Mech. Thermodyn (Forsch. Ing. Wes.) 1, 53–63 (1930)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Vemuri, S., Kim, K.: An experimental and theoretical study on the concept of dropwise condensation. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 49, 649–657 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Leach, R., Stevens, F., Langford, S., Dickinson, J.: Dropwise condensation: experiments and simulations of nucleation and growth of water drops in a cooling system. Langmuir 22, 8864–8872 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Ganzevles, F.: Drainage and condensate heat resistance in dropwise condensation of multicomponent mixtures in a plastic plate heat exchanger. PhD thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Zhang, R., sing Tsai, P., Cryer, J.E., Shah, M.: Shape from shading: A survey. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Machine Intell. 21, 690–706 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Pong, T.C., Haralick, R.M., Shapiro, L.G.: Shape from shading using the facet model. Pattern Recognition 22(6), 683–695 (1989)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Prados, E., Faugeras, O.: Shape From Shading. In: Handbook of Mathematical Models in Computer Vision, pp. 375–388. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Vincent, L.: Morphological grayscale reconstruction in image analysis: Applications and efficient algorithms. IEEE Trans. Image Processing 2, 176–201 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Serra, J.: Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology. Academic, London (1982)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. Ridler, T.W., Calvard, S.: Picture thresholding using an iterative selection method. IEEE Trans. Syst. Man, Cybern. SMC-8, 629–632 (1978)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Phong, B.T.: Illumination for computer generated pictures. Commun. ACM 18(6), 311–317 (1975)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Gill, P.E., Murray, W.: Algorithms for the solution of the nonlinear least-squares problem. SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis 15, 977–992 (1978)

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  13. Lourakis, M.I.A.: levmar: Levenberg-marquardt nonlinear least squares algorithms in C/C++ (July 2004), http://www.ics.forth.gr/~lourakis/levmar/

  14. Silverman, B.W.: Density Estimation for Statistics and Data Analysis. Chapman and Hall, London (1986)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Jalba, A.C., Westenberg, M.A., Grooten, M.H.M. (2009). Size from Specular Highlights for Analyzing Droplet Size Distributions. In: Jiang, X., Petkov, N. (eds) Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns. CAIP 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5702. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03767-2_144

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03767-2_144

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03766-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03767-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics