Contact:
Dept. of Geology
x72494
Analysis Software for
Images of Geologic
This project is the design of a stand-alone program that performs
repeated, in-sequence, thickness measurements on overlapping JPG images collected along the axis of a core of lake
sediment. A program of this type is used in the Geology Dept. to
construct records of annual variation in sediment thickness that serves as a chronologic and correlation tool as well as a proxy
variable for climate.
Currently we use a program first written back in 1996 by a
Geology undergraduate as a plug-in to UTHSCSA ImageTool
2.0. Last winter Shuai Yuan, an MS graduate
student in ECE, revised the plug-in for operation with Windows XP and an
updated version of UTHSCSA ImageTool ( 3.0 available at http://ddsdx.uthscsa.edu/dig/itdesc.html).
Shuai did an excellent job of getting us up and
running over last winter break. This program accepts images (BMP, JPG,
and other formats) captured from a old video camera we
have in our department. The images are sequential along the length of a
core (bottom to top) and have a low resolution given their size of 800 X 600
pixels. The program assists in measurements by recording marker lines on the
images (posted with mouse clicks) and collecting data in a table corresponding
to the vertical distances between horizontal lines identified as various
types. The program will allow measurements
to be corrected and creates a revised image set showing the positions of all
measurements and annotations placed on the images. Unfortunately the
combination of the plug-in and ImageTool 3.0 does not
work with high resolution JPG images from our more recently acquired digital
cameras that would give better resolution to our measurements even on their
lowest image size. Measurements come out misplaced on high resolution
images because the program will not display the images in such a way that the
slide bars on the image margins will work without registering false data.
The program seems to have trouble indexing the images. The program has
also behaved differently on different computers. These problems seem to
be a bug with ImageTool.
We are dodging a bullet every time a new version of ImageTool or Windows comes out or we use a different
computer. This is why it seems like an appropriate time to construct a
stand alone program that would be universal. With the consent of Prof.
Stafford the new program can be constructed in any language that seems
appropriate and can be revised at a later date. I would be more than happy
to show you how the current program operates and I also have some ideas as to
how the program might be improved or made more general, allowing it to have
application beyond my specific needs. A measurement program of this type
would likely be useful to any one studying sequences that require repeated
distance measurements. In Geology this includes making repeated
measurements of the thickness of stacked annual and non-annual sediment layers
in images of cores or field exposures and in tree ring analysis. There are
probably many other applications outside of geology as well.