Development and application of MIPAR™: a novel software package for two- and three-dimensional microstructural characterization

Sosa, J.M.; Huber, Daniel; Welk, Brian; Fraser, Hamish L.

doi:10.1186/2193-9772-3-10

Cited by 186 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…As the temperature increased, the alpha phase stability drops, and the volume fraction of alpha naturally declines. A quantitative analysis of the volume fraction of the a phase at various points was done using MIPAR TM , a new and powerful image processing software package [16]. Using adaptive thresholding, MIPAR TM is able to automatically differentiate features in an image for quantification, and apply the same procedures automatically to an entire batch of images for rapid acquisition of a large amount of microstructural data.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineered, Spatially Varying Isothermal Holds: Enabling Combinatorial Studies of Temperature Effects, as Applied to Metastable Titanium Alloy β-21S

Martin

Samimi

Collins

2017

Metallogr. Microstruct. Anal.

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A novel method to systematically vary temperature and thus study the resulting microstructure of a material is presented. This new method has the potential to be used in a combinatorial fashion, allowing the rapid study of thermal holds on microstructures to be conducted. This is demonstrated on a beta titanium alloy, where the thermal history has a strong effect on microstructure. It is informed by simulation and executed using the resistive heating capabilities of a Gleeble 3800 thermomechanical simulator. Spatially varying isothermal holds of 4 h were affected, where the temperature range of the multiple isothermal holds varied by *175°C.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineered, Spatially Varying Isothermal Holds: Enabling Combinatorial Studies of Temperature Effects, as Applied to Metastable Titanium Alloy β-21S

Martin

Samimi

Collins

2017

Metallogr. Microstruct. Anal.

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“…Over the last decade and a half, 3D characterization has begun to replace stereology with direct-3D quantification. As data acquisition techniques continue to advance, the need for more materials science-orientated analytical 2D and 3D software has become evident.This led to the development of a comprehensive software suite known as MIPAR™ (Materials Image Processing and Automated Reconstruction) [2]. MIPAR was written and developed within MATLAB™, but is deployable as a standalone cross-platform application.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This led to the development of a comprehensive software suite known as MIPAR™ (Materials Image Processing and Automated Reconstruction) [2]. MIPAR was written and developed within MATLAB™, but is deployable as a standalone cross-platform application.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

MIPAR™: 2D and 3D Microstructural Characterization Software Designed for Materials Scientists, by Materials Scientists

et al. 2015

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Stereology, the science of estimating three-dimensional quantities from two-dimensionally acquired measurements, has historically been the sole technique for microstructural quantification [1]. Over the last decade and a half, 3D characterization has begun to replace stereology with direct-3D quantification. As data acquisition techniques continue to advance, the need for more materials science-orientated analytical 2D and 3D software has become evident.This led to the development of a comprehensive software suite known as MIPAR™ (Materials Image Processing and Automated Reconstruction) [2]. MIPAR was written and developed within MATLAB™, but is deployable as a standalone cross-platform application. MATLAB's powerful 2D and 3D processing libraries have greatly contributed to and accelerated MIPAR's development. MIPAR is more an application environment than a single program. With a total of five applications, it was designed to handle all post-acquisition stages of 3D characterization: alignment, pre-processing, segmentation, visualization, and quantification, as well as provide a powerful platform for materials science-oriented 2D image analysis. Images of MIPAR's three most commonly used applications are shown in Figure 1.While direct-3D quantification offers several advantages over stereology such as the absence of sectioning variation and superior quantification of complex shapes, it is not without limitations. With good reason, the representative volume or area element (RVE or RAE) has been an increasingly popular topic of study and discussion [3]. However, a definition of the target quantification precision is often left out of RVE/RAE-related discussions. Therefore, this paper will present the use of MIPAR, together with statistical tools such as random sampling and bootstrapping, to establish quantitative relationships between sampled volume/area size and measurement precision for a variety of microstructural metrics. Two such relationships are shown in Figure 2.In addition to exploring the influence of sectioning variation on various stereological metrics, direct-3D quantification can either validate or invalidate stereological assumptions. A common stereological metric is the mean linear intercept. Measured from a series of random lines placed within a segmented microstructure, the mean linear intercept has been employed to estimate three-dimensional quantities such as the mean diameter of spheroidal precipitates and mean width of plate-like features [4]. In both cases, the constitutive equations rely of several assumptions regarding the shape and size distribution of the intercepted features. For features in α+β titanium microstructures, MIPAR has been used to explore the validity of these assumptions and determine the sensitivity of stereological quantification to deviations from such assumptions.The efficacy of these characterization efforts was critically dependent on segmentation. Therefore, a strong focus has been placed on developing a method of objectively quantifying segmentation quality. This ...

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“…Successive layers of the samples were removed via ion milling and subsequently SE imaged. Figure 2(a) displays the reconstructed volume of precipitates after image processing and feature extraction using MIPAR™ [5]. Figure 2(b) shows the non-edge touching precipitates of the reconstructed volume.…”

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confidence: 99%

Super-X XEDS STEM Tomography of y' Precipitates in the LSHR Nickel Superalloy

et al. 2015

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Electron tomography has been proposed to be advantageous for reconstructing sub-micron precipitates in nickel superalloys. However, not every type of electron image provides the necessary contrast for high fidelity tomographic reconstruction. The γʹ′ precipitates in Low Solvus High Refractory (LSHR) form coherently with the matrix and exhibit limited atomic number contrast relative to the matrix when imaged with traditional transmission (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) bright field/dark field imaging. Previous research has shown that energy filtered TEM (EFTEM) has displayed successfully γʹ′ morphologies based off the Cr-L 3,2 edge [1,2]. However, EFTEM is hindered by poor signal to noise during image collection requiring prohibitive acquisition times. X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS) in STEM offers a robust method to collect a wide range of compositional information and enables spectral image (SI) collection that permits post-processing analysis of multiple elemental species. The primary objective of the work to be presented was to use Super-X™ XEDS in STEM to acquire compositional maps of LSHR to produce tomographic reconstructions that accurately depict γʹ′ precipitates within a dual-microstructure heat treatment (DMHT) gradient [3] as shown in Figure 1(a). Chromium is a significant component of the LSHR alloy at 12.3 wt% and segregates to the γ matrix, therefore chromium XEDS SI can provide strong contrast between the γʹ′ precipitates and the chromium-rich matrix. The XEDS SI shown in Figure 1(b) was used for the full precipitate reconstruction as displayed in Figure 1(c). The DMHT gradient contains a range of intricate γʹ′ morphologies that have proven difficult to characterize with two-dimensional methods. Three-dimensional characterization not only provides the morphology of the γʹ′, but will also permit more accurate microstructural metrics for inputs for integrated computational materials (ICME) models.Images for Super-X XEDS tomographic reconstructions were acquired using a FEI Titan™ G2 60-300 S/TEM equipped with Super-X™ technology. The Super-X™ collection system is composed of four silicon drift detector (SDD) covering a 0.7 srad collection angle providing for fast and efficient XEDS SI collection with nanometer scale spatial resolution. A tomographic tilt series was acquired from needle-shaped LSHR specimens fabricated using a Helios™ dual-beam FIB. Using a needle shape geometry and tilting along the longitudinal axis avoids projected thickness variations that usually occur with conventional thin foils. SIs were collected with acquisition times of 300s/image and 20 µs/pixel dwell times. The tilt series was collected from -62° to +62° at 2° increments.Due to the limited volume contained in the extracted needles, additional characterization techniques were applied for a more complete γʹ′ reconstruction. To this end, FIB serial sectioning was performed using images formed from secondary electron (SE) contrast [4]. Successive layers of the samples were removed via i...

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Development and application of MIPAR™: a novel software package for two- and three-dimensional microstructural characterization

Cited by 186 publications

References 21 publications

Engineered, Spatially Varying Isothermal Holds: Enabling Combinatorial Studies of Temperature Effects, as Applied to Metastable Titanium Alloy β-21S

Engineered, Spatially Varying Isothermal Holds: Enabling Combinatorial Studies of Temperature Effects, as Applied to Metastable Titanium Alloy β-21S

MIPAR™: 2D and 3D Microstructural Characterization Software Designed for Materials Scientists, by Materials Scientists

Super-X XEDS STEM Tomography of y' Precipitates in the LSHR Nickel Superalloy

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