THE ART AND APPLICATION OF DIC

All about Speckles: Speckle Density

by Phillip Reu

Introduction
This is the last article discussing the general attributes of the speckles. Properties of a speckle
These rules all apply regardless of sample size. The difference is only in 1. Size (pixels)
the physical size of the speckle and application methods. This article 2. Contrast (grey levels)
will discuss the density of the speckles. 3. Speckle edge sharpness (contrast gra-
dient)
4. Speckle density (spatial distribu-
Speckle Density tion)

Ideally you would have equal sized black and white speckle areas.
With printed patterns, this is easily accomplished. When using spray
paints or other techniques, this is much more difficult. A common
problem with spray paints is ‘‘over-spray’’ where a fine mist covers an
area compromising the contrast and likely creating aliased speckles.

Randomness
No real effort is needed to get random speckle patterns. Why? While
I imagine that a ‘‘perfectly’’ created uniform pattern would cause
issues, all manually produced patterns, even those from grids, are
unique enough to not cause problems with the correlation. The
advantage of all hand applied speckles, are the imperfections that
will make each speckle unique. Sometimes with uniform patterns,
an initial guess may be needed, particularly in stereo-DIC. Confusion
during the initial guess is probably the biggest drawback to stencil
patterns where it can be difficult to locate a unique starting speckle
for the cross-correlation. For this reason, I will often mark by hand
a couple of locations that help the human eye locate the matching
subset. This marking doesn’t have to be very large, just large enough
to standout. The DIC algorithms, once started, don’t tend to get lost
during motion, because the previous location is used for starting the
search. With large motions between frames, this assumption may no
longer be valid, and algorithms may get lost.

A dot grid like this is OK. Just be careful that

Speckle Directionality a subset/facet has enough dots to have
Gradients and displacement uncertainty are often described in a 1D gradients in all directions.

sense, but the gradient is really a 2D operation and all the orientations
are important, not just the horizontal and vertical. It is therefore

The Art and Application of Digital Image Correlation is written by Phillip L. Reu
(Phillip.Reu.DIC@gmail.com). He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
and is currently a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratory. He
began working with digital image correlation in 2004 and is focused on understanding
the influence of the unavoidable compromises made in field measurements on the final
DIC uncertainty. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a
Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Speckle pattern showing subset and marking
Security Administration under contract No. DE-AC04-94AL85000. to provide easy identification of locations.

Experimental Techniques 39 (2015) 1–2 © 2015, Society for Experimental Mechanics 1

The Art and Application of DIC
Error surface for a directional pattern and a
random pattern. Note the typical s-curve in
2D and the very high errors in the direction
of the lines in the top chart.
2 Experimental Techniques 39 (2015) 1–2 © 2015, Society for Experimental Mechanics
important to ensure that there are speckles in all directions and is
why a ‘‘random’’ pattern is helpful. Just be careful that there is no
directionality in your pattern. The side figure shows two patterns and
the corresponding error surface. The lines on the top obviously have
a strong directionality and this leads to very poor matching in that
direction (1.8 pixels). The bottom figure with a more natural speckle
pattern has good matching in all directions. The lines are obviously
a problem, but remember that this is on the subset scale, so regions
that have characteristics like this are also unacceptable.
Practical Considerations
The density and speckle size are controlled by the minimum required
subset size, which in turn is controlled by the expected displacement
gradients across the sample. If the subsets can be larger, this of course
loosens the requirements on the speckle pattern, that is, you can
have a lower percent coverage and oversized speckles. However, if
you need to absolutely hit the optimum speckle size and density, trial
and error will be required to reliably reproduce the pattern. Spray
paint, probably the most common speckling method, can be very
difficult to optimize. Often times you will have low density combined
with speckles that are too large and too small. An illustration of this
is shown on the side, with a white speckle pattern done with spray
paint. Some of the pitfalls are clearly seen. There are some very large
speckles; including an attempt to touch up the area with sharpie
markers – and regions of overspray, with small aliased speckles.
Another pattern is shown using toner powder on paint where the
speckle size is just right; however getting the density up to 50%
coverage was not possible without clumping and creating oversized
speckles. Note that both the speckle and the gap between the speckles
must be 3 pixels or greater.
Conclusions
So this ends the discussion on how to create a perfect speckle; Size,
contrast, edge, and density. The reader should now be aware of what
is needed to build a good pattern. Knowing what makes a good
speckle is very different than creating one! It seems that for every
different speckle size, there needs to be some development time set
aside to determine how best to create this pattern. Speckling ideas are
welcome and can be sent to Phillip.Reu.DIC@gmail.com.
Next Time: Points on paint.