Strain contouring with Gabor filters: filter bank design.
A novel fringe processing method is proposed to segment whole-field strain distributions from interferometric deformation patterns by use of Gabor filters. This novel strategy is specifically proposed for strain measurement with a Gabor filter used as a set of wavelets. To increase computational speed as well as for selection of contour intervals, judicious design of the filter bank, based on the fringe pattern and the requirements of the user, is crucial in this methodology. A filter design strategy is developed and, based on the proposed filter design scheme, properly designed filter banks are generated and applied for strain contouring in low-strain and strain concentration regions. This scheme allows one to measure engineering strains within regions of interest and hence provides the design engineer great flexibility of monitoring, testing, or analysis.