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A protocol for fractal studies on porosity of porous media: High quality soil porosity images

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Abstract

A protocol for obtaining digital images from natural porous media with a wide range of pore sizes, intended for fractal studies of the porosity, is proposed. Soil porosity is used as paradigm of complex natural porous media in this study. The use of several imaging devices and fluorescent compounds to enhance the contrast between the solid and the pore phase is tested. Finally a protocol is reached using a photo camera and a confocal microscope. It is the first time that confocal microscopy is used for this purpose. Artificial porous images are created through random Sierpinski carpet fractals and the statistical information of real soil images. These ground truth images are used in an objective comparison of automatic segmentation algorithms for the obtained images. A statistical classification on the performance of several automatic segmentation algorithms for this type of images is reached.

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Aknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the Plan Nacional de Investigación Científica, Desarrollo e Investigación Tecnológica (I+D+i) (Nos. AGL2011/25175 and AGL2015/69697P), and by DGUI (Comunidad de Madrid) and UPM (No. QM100245066). The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-017-0777-x.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dpto. Matemática Aplicada, E.T.S.I. Navales, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, 28040, Spain

    Carlos García-Gutiérrez

  2. Dpto. Matemática Aplicada, E.T.S.I. Agrónomos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, 28040, Spain

    Fernando San José Martínez & J. Caniego

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  1. Carlos García-Gutiérrez
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  2. Fernando San José Martínez
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  3. J. Caniego
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Correspondence to Carlos García-Gutiérrez.

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García-Gutiérrez, C., San José Martínez, F. & Caniego, J. A protocol for fractal studies on porosity of porous media: High quality soil porosity images. J. Earth Sci. 28, 888–896 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-017-0777-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-017-0777-x

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