A detailed comparison of single-camera light-field PIV and tomographic PIV

• Main Authors: Shi, Shengxian, Ding, Junfei, Atkinson, Callum, Soria, Julio, New, Tze How
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering; Light-field Camera; Light-field Particle Image Velocimetry
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/88951; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/48341
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper conducts a comprehensive study between the single-camera light-field particle image velocimetry (LF-PIV) and the multi-camera tomographic particle image velocimetry (Tomo-PIV). Simulation studies were first performed using synthetic light-field and tomographic particle images, which extensively examine the difference between these two techniques by varying key parameters such as pixel to microlens ratio (PMR), light-field camera Tomo-camera pixel ratio (LTPR), particle seeding density and tomographic camera number. Simulation results indicate that the single LF-PIV can achieve accuracy consistent with that of multi-camera Tomo-PIV, but requires the use of overall greater number of pixels. Experimental studies were then conducted by simultaneously measuring low-speed jet flow with single-camera LF-PIV and four-camera Tomo-PIV systems. Experiments confirm that given a sufficiently high pixel resolution, a single-camera LF-PIV system can indeed deliver volumetric velocity field measurements for an equivalent field of view with a spatial resolution commensurate with those of multi-camera Tomo-PIV system, enabling accurate 3D measurements in applications where optical access is limited.