3-D Extraction of Fibres from Microtomographic Images of Fibre-Reinforced Composite Materials

Mechanical properties of molded components made from fibre-rein forced composite materials locally depend of the orientation of the fibres. The evaluation of the properties is done by sampling the component at known positions. The samples (of size of 1 mm(3)) are scanned in a tomograph which yields 3-D images. We are interested in extracting the individual fibres, to analyze their length and local orientation. The segmentation of the fibres is a challenging task. First, the resolution of the reconstruction being at the limits of the capabilities of the device (optics, sensor, wavelength), the images are noisy and fuzzy. Second, the fibres have a non uniform length and are heavily tangled. This paper describes the segmentation process.