Grain-Size Distribution of Granular Soils by Computer Vision
Raschke SA, Hryciw RD
(Received 6 September 1996; accepted 29 May 1997)

Abstract
A semi-automated technique for obtaining the grain-size distribution (GSD) of granular soils using computer vision is presented. Backlighted digital images of a soil specimen dispersed over a glass specimen plate are acquired at three different magnifications. Images of the specimen are acquired by placing the specimen plate randomly beneath the field of view of a charged-coupled device (CCD) video camera. The size of particles with projected areas from 50 to 2000 pix² is measured in each image. Multiple images are acquired at each magnification until the measured size distribution of particles counted at that magnification stabilizes. Probabilistic corrections are then used to obtain a statistically unbiased GSD from the image data obtained at all three magnifications. A comparison of GSD data for two uniform and two nonuniform soils using both computer vision and sieving is presented.

Keywords:
computer vision, grain-size distribution, granular soils, image processing, probability, sieve analysis

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Author Raschke SA, Hryciw RD Title Grain-Size Distribution of Granular Soils by Computer Vision Symposium , Committee on