Short communication

3D complex shape characterization by statistical analysis:

Application to aluminium alloys
Estelle Parra Denis
a,

, Ccile Barat
b
, Dominique Jeulin
a
, Christophe Ducottet
b
a
Ecole Nationale Suprieure des Mines de Paris, 35, rue Saint-Honor, 77300 Fontainebleau, France
b
Laboratoire Traitement du Signal et Instrumentation,UMR CNRS-UJM 5516, Btiment F, 18 rue du Pr.Benot Lauras, 42000 Saint-Etienne,
France
A R T I C L E D A T A A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received 9 August 2006
Accepted 18 January 2007
The goal of this paper is to describe a methodology for characterizing 3D complex shapes
using morphological features. First, we provide 3D morphological measurements for
understanding complex shapes. Second, we explain the analysis method based on
principal component analysis. We illustrate our approach on populations of intermetallic
particles of aluminium alloys investigated using X-ray microtomography. In that case, the
analysis provides a description of shapes with a limited number of parameters, with a
morphological interpretation for each of them. We finally demonstrate the practical interest
of our work by comparing two populations extracted from the same aluminium sample at
two deformation stages of a hot rolling process.
2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Aluminium alloys characterization
Intermetallic particles classification
Image processing
Morphological analysis
Principal component analysis
1. Introduction
The microstructure of a material determines its physical
properties. Having an understanding of the microstructure
formation is a key tool for material scientists to predict the
mechanical properties of the material and to develop products
with desired properties.
X-ray microtomography can now provide a 3D representa-
tion of the microstructure of materials with high resolution in
a non destructive way. Image processing is then essential to
extract the relevant microstructural components and to
perform 3D measurements to characterize quantitatively the
material's microstructure of interest. These microstructural
components often exhibit complex shapes, which makes their
analysis difficult.
Many 3D shape analysis algorithms exist in the literature
[2,4]. However, most of the time, they only apply to simple 3D
shapes or star-shaped objects. Hence, the analysis of 3D
complex shapes like those encountered in material studies
required the development of new approaches.
In this paper, we propose a methodology to carry out 3D
complex shape analysis using morphological features. This
methodology is illustrated with the analysis of intermetallic
particles of aluminium alloys. It provides a description of
shapes with a limited number of parameters, with a morpho-
logical interpretation for each of them. 2Dor 3D plots can then
be used to study the shape variability of populations.
In the case of aluminium alloys, such analysis is useful to
reveal morphological differences between particles and to
track the deformation of the particles when hot-rolling is
applied to the studied alloy. During this process used to
transform aluminium slabs into sheets, the material under-
goes important stress and strain and intermetallic particles
then break up.
M A T E R I A L S C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N 5 9 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 3 8 3 4 3
Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 164694805; fax: +33 164694707.
E-mail addresses: estelle.parra@univ-st-etienne.fr (E.P. Denis), cecile.barat@univ-st-etienne.fr (C. Barat), dominique.jeulin@ensmp.fr
(D. Jeulin), ducottet@univ-st-etienne.fr (C. Ducottet).
1044-5803/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matchar.2007.01.012
The processing was made on 3D images of an aluminium
sample of 1 mm
2
1 cm at different rolling process stages of
the material. X-ray microtomography was performed at the
European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Grenoble, France).
These images have a resolution of 0.7 m
3
and contain
thousands of intermetallic particles with volume ranging
from 9 m
3
up to 24.000 m
3
.
The following paper is organized as follows. First, we
provide some Morphological features for 3D complex shape
characterization. Second, we performa statistical multivariate
analysis to select a set of parameters adapted to the
morphology of particles. Third, results at two stages of the
hot rolling process are proposed to demonstrate the practical
interest of the methodology. Finally, a Conclusion is given.
2. Morphological Features
In this section, we provide a set of morphological parameters
for characterizing 3D complex shapes. The parameters can be
divided into four categories: basic measures, shape indexes,
geodesic measures, and mass distribution parameters.
2.1. Basic Measures
They include volume and surface area:
- the volume (V) is calculated as the number of voxels that
form the object.
Fig. 1 Theoretical graph of
2
versus
1
.
Fig. 2 Pairwise correlation analysis.
339 M A T E R I A L S C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N 5 9 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 3 8 3 4 3
- the surface area (S) is estimated by the stereological
method of Crofton [1].
2.2. Shape Indexes
Shape indexes compare a studied shape to a reference one [7]:
- the index of sphericity is defined as: I
s
=36V
2
/ S
2
. A
sphere will have an index of sphericity equal to 1.
- the index of compacity is I
c
=6I
s
/ : It compares the shape
to a cube instead of a sphere, a cube will have an index of
compacity equal to 1.
2.3. Geodesic Measures
Parameters of this category are based on the geodesic distance
[5], which is an important geometric measure for understand-
ing complex shapes of objects. The geodesic distance between
two points x
1
and x
2
belonging to a given shape X is equal to
the length of the shortest path connecting x
1
to x
2
, remaining
included in X. It allows to determine:
- the geodesic radius (R
min
) of a shape X which corresponds
to the smallest ball included in X. It provides information
about the size of the core of the shape. It is normalized to
correspond to a shape index whichcompares the volume of
the minimum ball included in the shape to the one of the
object.
- the geodesic elongation index (IG
g
), is a novel index which
we propose as an extension to 3D of the well known
geodesic stretching index in 2D [5]. It characterizes the
object elongation and is defined as: IG
g
=L
g
3
/ 6V, where L
g
is
the geodesic length. L
g
is the maximum length of a path
which can be drawn within the shape.
2.4. Mass Distribution Parameters
Moments of inertia of an object depend on its shape and
characterize the distribution of mass within the shape. They
correspond to the eigen values of the inertia matrix of the
shape [6] (computed from the center of mass of X, under the
assumption that the mass is uniformly distributed and that
the elementary volume is the voxel). They are normalized in
order to be independent of the volume. If I
1
, I
2
, I
3
denote the
moments of inertia, the normalized moments
1
,
2
,
3
are
defined as:
i
=I
i
/ I
1
+I
2
+I
3
, i =1,2,3. Their sum is equal to 1 and
they are ordered:
1

3
. From those equations end the
definition of inertia moments, the two following inequalities
can be deduced:
8
i
; k
i
V0:5 and k
2
z0:5d 1 k
1

Plotting all these equations leads to a triangle having original
properties to describe shapes (Fig. 1). At the triangle vertices,
we can distinguish 3 types of mass distribution within 3D
objects: spherical, flat and needle. Between these extremities,
shapes vary continuously. Along the triangle edges, shapes are
prolate ellipsoid-typed, oblate ellipsoid-typed or flat ellipse-
typed.
3. Shape Statistical Analysis
In the case of the analysis of a complex particles population, a
statistical study must be performed. The goal is to provide a
description of shapes with a minimumnumber of parameters.
For that purpose, we propose in this section to use the
principal component analysis [3] (PCA). This analysis and the
way we select parameters is illustrated with a population of
intermetallic particles.
3.1. Data Matrix
Measurements of the previous morphological parameters
were made on 3500 intermetallic particles for a 10% deformed
aluminium alloy. A pairwise correlation analysis between
parameters presented in Fig. 2 suggests to remove some
parameters before applying PCA. Indeed, as we can see on Fig.
2, the volume V and surface S parameters are linearly
correlated, as well as I
s
and the geodesic radius R
min
.
Consequently, we choose to disregard S and R
min
, as they do
not bring any further information.
Finally, the considered parameters are: volume, sphericity
index, geodesic elongation index and the normalized eigen
values of the inertia matrix (
1
,
2
).
Fig. 3 PCA correlation circles (A) factorial axes 12 (B)
factorial axes 23.
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The data matrix is therefore composed of 3500 particles
and 5 parameters describing each particle. Different types of
PCAexist, varying in the way the data are presented (centered/
not centeredreduced/not reduced). In our case, it is appro-
priate to center and reduce the data because data points
project uniformly on all axes and they are measured in
different units.
3.2. Principal Components Analysis
The computation of the PCA of our data matrix returns the
following percentages of the variability for each eigen values:
e1=45,5%, e2=28,5%, e3=13,8%, e4=8,0% and e5=4.2%. For the
present study, we only keep the first three axes since they
represent 87.8% of the variability.
To understand the role of the initial variables in the
formation of the principle axes, it is usual to project them
onto the new axes leading to the correlation circle maps
(Fig. 3).
On the correlation circles, we observe that the geodesic
elongation index IGg is strongly negatively correlated with
axis 1 and slightly correlated with axis 3. The index of
sphericity I
s
is strongly positively correlated with axis 1 and
close to IGg on axis 3. The volume is negatively related with
axis 1 and positively related with axis 2.
1
and
2
are strongly
negatively related with axis 2 and they are mixed. They split
according to axis 3 where
2
is positive and
1
is negative.
The opposite correlation of IGg, V and I
s
with axis 1 reflects
that axis 1 characterizes elongation changes and that the
more elongated an object is, the larger it is. Axis 2 suggests
that the larger a particle, the smaller
1
and
2
, which means,
according to paragraph 2, that a large particles tend to have a
spherical mass distribution, while small ones tend to have a
flat or cylindrical mass distribution. Axis 3 allows to distin-
guish objects with a flat mass distribution from ones having a
needle mass distribution. The interpretation of correlation
circles is presented with arrows on Fig. 4(C) and (D).
3.3. Analysis of Morphological Differences of Aluminium
Particles
The previous interpretations of the principal axes are useful to
analyze the cloud of our data points in order to identify some
groups of particle shapes. The maps of the particles on the two
Fig. 4 Data cloud in PC space and shape trends (A) Plane 12 (B) Plane 23 (C) Plane 12 with shape trends (D) Plane 23 with
shape trends.
341 M A T E R I A L S C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N 5 9 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 3 8 3 4 3
first factorial planes are given on Fig. 4. It is clear that the
shape of particles varies continuously. No group of particles
stands out.
3.3.1. Analysis of Trends on Plane 12
FromFig. 4A, we can infer that small particles (quadrant 234)
are more numerous than large ones. In quadrant 1, we observe
a pointed distribution of objects in the opposed direction of
1
and
2
. It expresses that the higher I
s
, the more compact the
object and naturally, the more spherical its mass distribution
(particle B onFig. 5). Quadrant 2 corresponds to particles witha
large volume. Along the vertical axis, their mass distribution
gets more and more spherical (particle E). Along the horizontal
axes, objects gets more elongated (particle A). In quadrant 3,
we find elongated particles (particle C). Quadrant 4 contains
small particles having any possible mass distribution.
3.3.2. Analysis of Trends on Plane 12
The data cloud on the second factorial plane (Fig. 4B) is
characterized by a triangular structure. As a matter of fact,
axes 2 and 3 are mainly correlated with the
1
and
2
variables.
The observed triangle corresponds to the theoretical triangle
explained in paragraph 2, up to a scale factor. Shape trends
explained in Sections 3.3.1 and 3.3.2 are reported on Fig. 4(D).
Fig. 5 5 different types of AA5182 particles.
342 M A T E R I A L S C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N 5 9 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 3 8 3 4 3
This plane allows to characterize particles according to the
type of their mass distribution. The 3 types are illustrated with
particles C, D and E.
4. Application to the Comparison of Two
Deformation Stages
In mechanical studies, it is fundamental to understand the
break-up of intermetallic particles in aluminium alloys. We
propose here to use our morphological shape analysis method
to compare the two particle populations of an aluminium
sample at two deformation stages of an hot rolling process.
The first population is the one studied in Section 3. It
corresponds to the beginning of the process (10% deforma-
tion). The second one corresponds to a more advanced stage of
deformation (80%).
The comparison between two particle populations is made
possible by projecting one of them in the PCA representation
space of the other. As the deformation process progresses, the
number of particles increases. Fig. 6 plots the 80% data points
in the 10% factorial planes.
It is obvious that there are fewer particles in quadrant 2 of
graph 6-a than in graph 4-a. This quadrant corresponds to
large particles. As expected, large particles tend to disappear,
while needle-liked and flat ones tend to appear, which we
have checked on a 2D histogram of plane 23. Large particles
are indeed the most brittle. As the deformation process goes
along, they break. Their pieces become new smaller particles
with simpler shapes.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we have presented a set of morphological
parameters adapted to the characterization of 3D complex
shapes. We have shown that applying PCA on the measured
parameters was efficient to characterize morphological differ-
ences inside a large population of intermetallic particles and
to compare populations of a same sample at two stages of
deformation. We now plan to use the results for clustering
particles into different classes. Our final goal is to model the
microstructure evolution during hot-rolling process.
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[3] Greenacre MJ. Theory and applications of correspondence
analysis. London: Academic Press; 1984.
[4] Holboth A, Pedersen J, Vedel Jensen E. A deformable template
model, with special reference to elliptical models. J Math
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[5] Lantuejoul C, Maisonneuve F. Geodesic methods in quantita-
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[7] Soille P. Morphological Image Analysis Principles and Appli-
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Fig. 6 Particles of the 80% deformed material projected on
the factorial planes of Fig. 4.
343 M A T E R I A L S C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N 5 9 ( 2 0 0 8 ) 3 3 8 3 4 3