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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

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Published on: October 28, 2018
Robust approach to regularize an isochromatic fringe map.
Philip Siegmann1, Francisco Díaz-Garrido, Eann A Patterson
1Departamento de Teoría de la Señal y Comunicaciones, Universidad de Alcalá, Escuela Politécnica, 28805-Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain. philip.siegmann@uah.es
This study introduces a new regularized phase-tracking method to accurately compute relative retardation from photoelastic fringe patterns. The technique effectively handles ambiguity in principal stress direction, simplifying fringe order computation for complex experimental data.
Area of Science:
- Photoelasticity
- Stress Analysis
- Optical Metrology
Background:
- Computing continuous isochromatic fringe order from phase maps is challenging, especially with ambiguous principal stress directions.
- Ambiguity in stress direction leads to abrupt slope changes in relative retardation maps.
- Existing methods struggle with complex experimental data, including isotropic points and low resolution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel regularized phase-tracking method for unambiguous relative retardation computation.
- To address the challenges of fringe order mapping in photoelasticity.
- To enable straightforward and fast unwrapping of the computed retardation map.
Main Methods:
- A regularized phase-tracking approach is employed at each pixel.
- The method selects unambiguous relative retardation values.
- Standard unwrapping techniques are applied to the resulting wrapped map.
Main Results:
- Successfully processed complex experimental photoelastic data.
- Handled data with isotropic points, high fringe density, and low resolution.
- Generated an unambiguous relative retardation map.
Conclusions:
- The novel method provides a robust solution for fringe order computation in photoelasticity.
- It simplifies the analysis of complex experimental data.
- The technique facilitates accurate stress analysis where principal stress direction is ambiguous.
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