Automatic Volumetric Measurement of Nanofiber Webs using Metaball Approximation Based on Scanning Electron Microscope Images

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images are an essential tool for identifying the microstructures of fibrous and polymeric materials. Useful information, including fiber orientation and radius distributions, can be retrieved from the SEM images. However, the image is two dimensional and its manual measurement is inevitable for acquiring volumetric information. This paper reconstructed the three-dimensional shape of the fibers by approximating the fibers with spheres known as metaballs. Image analysis techniques were used to generate metaballs and the volumetric information was calculated from the sizes and positions of the metaballs. The proposed method was tested with nano-scale polymer SEM images and automatic statistical measurements were compared with the manual measurements.