| 79 | | = The main PIV parameters = |
| 80 | | The first parameter to adjust is the time interval between images, which should be sufficiently long to provide a displacement of a few pixels. The measurement precision is typically 0.2 pixel, so that a displacement of 4 pixels, as in the example, provides a relative precision of 5 %. A larger displacement would be preferable in terms of precision but may yield to poor image correlation and ’false vectors’. |
| 81 | | |
| 82 | | Once the image pair has been chosen, the main parameters are the size of the correlation box in both directions ('''[num_!CorrBoxSize]_1]''' and '''_2''') and the size of the search box, ('''[num_!SearchBoxSize_1]''' and '''_2'''), expressed in pixels. For each velocity vector, the correlation box is moved within the search box to optimise the image correlation between the two sub-images inside the correlation box. To allow for a displacement of d pixels, the search box size must exceed the correlation box by at least d+2 on both sides, so 2d+4. A systematic shift '''[num_!SearchBoxShift_1]''', and '''_2''', can be also introduced to minimise the search area in the presence of a mean flow. |
| 83 | | |
| 84 | | The parameter '''[num_!CorrSmooth]''' is used to fit the correlation data with a smooth function to obtain the maximum with sub-pixel precision. We generally keep the default value 1. |
| 85 | | |
| 86 | | The parameters '''[num_Dx]''' and '''[num_Dy] '''define the mesh of the measurement grid, in pixels. Reduce them to get more vectors, but keep in mind that the spatial resolution is limited by the size of the correlation box. |
| 87 | | |
| 88 | | The PIV operation is conveniently visualised by pressing the button '''[!TestCiv1]''' in the GUI civ. Then the image appear in a new GUI '''view_field''', in which the mouse motion displays the correlation function, which appears in a secondary window, see figure. The resulting vector is shown as a line pointing to the correlation maximum. The corresponding correlation and search boxes are shown in the image. Let us run again PIV with '''[!CorrBoxSize]'''=[25 25] and '''[!SearchBoxSize]'''=[33,33], limiting ourselves to CIV1, and visualisae the result with '''uvmat'''. Many black vectors (F=-2) are obtained, showing that the search domain is too small, so that the correlation maximum is constrained by the limited search interval. Repeat the operation with '''[!SearchBoxSize]'''=[35,33], then the arrows are not black anymore. |
| 89 | | |
