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We present an effective method for the accurate three-dimensional (3D) measurement of small industrial parts under a complicated noisy background, based on stereo vision. To effectively extract the nonlinear features of desired curves of the measured parts in the images, a strategy from coarse to fine extraction is employed, based on a virtual motion control system. By using the multiscale decomposition of gray images and virtual beam chains, the nonlinear features can be accurately extracted. By analyzing the generation of geometric errors, the refined feature points of the desired curves are extracted. Then the 3D structure of the measured parts can be accurately reconstructed and measured with least squares errors. Experimental results show that the presented method can accurately measure industrial parts that are represented by various line segments and curves.

We present an effective method for reconstructing and measuring the three-dimensional (3D) structures of diamond crowns based on stereo vision. To reach high measurement accuracy, the influences of 3D measurement errors are analyzed in detail. Then, a method to accurately extract the linear features of diamond edges based on virtual motion control is described. Depending on the obtained linear features, the 3D structure of a diamond crown can be reconstructed with least squares error. The validity of the proposed method is verified by experiments. The results show that the proposed method can be used to measure the 3D structures of diamond crowns with satisfactory accuracy and efficiency, and it also can be used to extract linear features and measure other similar artificial objects that can be represented by line segments.

An optical diagnostic technique has been developed to measure the gas-liquid interfacial film thickness in microcapillary two-phase flows. The spatial frequencies from the multiscattering measured with a CCD camera are used to determine the slug diameter and film thickness. It is found that, with an optimized optical orientation angle, the spatial frequency method shows great accuracy in the measurements. To demonstrate the capability of the newly developed method, a validation experiment was conducted in water-air and water-honey mixture-air two-phase flows. We measured the spatial frequency variations when the microbubble and slug were pulsating by utilizing a highly accurate signal processing technique and a five-point interpolation method. This newly developed optical method is easy to implement, and it will be a useful technique for two-phase flow measurements.

A novel method is developed to improve the accuracy of micro-resolution particle image velocimetry (PIV) in microfluidics measurements. This method utilizes the Laplacian of Gaussian method and image-processing techniques to eliminate the background scattering noise. A high signal-to-noise ratio image has been obtained. This technique is especially suitable for improving micro-resolution PIV in micro, two-, or multiphase flow conditions, such as for submicron bubbly flow measurements in a microchannel. The method can easily be implemented with minimal modification of the conventional PlV system. The results of simulation and experiments demonstrated the feasibility of this, to our knowledge, new method.

Traditional optical methods for locating an edge are based on light intensity variation with respect to a reference triggering level. Since the intensity variation is subject to stray light, the intensity variation of the light source, and the triggering level variation, the exact position of the edge cannot be determined. We describe a method for edge location that uses a phase variation in a modified differential interferometer. The maximal point of the slope of the phase variation across an edge is determined exactly by the relative position between the focused beam spot and the detected edge if the initial intensity ratio of the two single-frequency interference beams is kept unchanged. Therefore the phase variation can be used to locate the edge with high resolution and accuracy. To make practical use of the phase variation, the second derivative of the phase was used as a monotonic zero-crossing signal across the edge. The theoretical and the experimental verification have been conducted in detail. The results of the experiment show the feasibility of edge location when phase variation is used. The scheme is not affected by stray light and the intensity variation of the light source.

A novel, to our knowledge, optical readout for optical storage with phase jump is presented. In the readout scheme two coherent laser beams are focused on an optical disk with one beam scanning along pits and the other along land. When the probe beam scans across a pit, two phase jumps will take place in the interference resultant of the two beams if the phase difference between two beams is prefixed at pi, resulting in a phase pulse of 180 deg. The slopes of rising and falling edges of the phase pulse are infinite, and they are not affected by the intensity variation of the light source, stray light, and the vibration of the disk. Therefore this phase pulse can be used to read out the information on an optical disk. The use of phase jump will improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the readout signal and enhance the density of optical storage. An optical readout with phase jump was constructed. Both the theoretical design and the experimental verification are conducted. Experimental results show that the proposed optical readout is feasible.

A novel method is developed to improve the accuracy of particle sizing in laser phase-Doppler anemometry (PDA). In this method the vector sum of refractive and reflective rays is taken into consideration in describing a dual-mechanism-scattering model caused by a nonuniformly illuminated PDA measurement volume. The constraint of the single-mechanism-scattering model in the conventional PDA is removed. As a result the error caused by the measurement-volume effect, which consists of a Gaussian-beam defect and a slit effect, can be eliminated. This new method can be easily implemented with minimal modification of the conventional PDA system. The results of simulation based on the generalized Lorenz-Mie theory show that the new method can provide a PDA system free from the measurement-volume effect.

We describe an improved interferometer for angle measurement based on the internal reflection effect. The improvement is achieved by eliminating the influence of wave-plate rotation on the measurement. In the proposed angle interferometer the wave plate is fixed and placed between a rhomb assembly and a retroreflector. This scheme not only allows the angle interferometer to keep the optical configuration compact but also doubles the resolution and can measure the pitch and yaw of moving objects. Both a theoretical analysis and an experimental verification have been conducted on the interferometer. The results indicate that the performance of the modified angle interferometer is greatly improved, especially when the rotation angle is large. The nonlinearity error of the measurement equation is also addressed.

We describe a new method for edge detection that uses polarization mixing in a differential heterodyne interferometer. When one of the focused beams of the interferometer scans across an edge, a phase jump of 180 degrees takes place in the very small region of the edge if certain conditions are satisfied. We call this phenomenon phase jump. The conditions in which phase jump can occur are given. The theoretical analysis shows that the slope of a phase jump is infinite and is not affected by step height, the vibration of the sample, or the intensity variation of the light source. Therefore phase jump can be used as the precise index for edge detection. The experimental results show good agreement with the theoretical analysis.