Extraction of microcracks in rock images based on heuristic graph searching and application

In this paper, we propose a new method, based on a graph searching technique, for microcrack extraction from scanning electron microscopic images of rocks. This method mainly focuses on how to detect the crack and extract it, and then quantify some basic geometrical features. The crack can be detected automatically with the aid of two endpoints of the crack. The algorithm involves the following process: the A* graph searching technique is first used to find a path throughout the crack region, defined by the initial two endpoints; the pixels of the path will be used as the seeds for the region growing method to restore the primary crack area; then, an automatic filling holes' operation is used to remove the possible holes in the region growing result; the medial axis and distance transformation of the crack area are acquired, and then the final crack is rebuilt by painting disks along a medial axis without branches. The crack result is separated without interaction. In the remaining parts, the crack features are quantified, such as the length, width, angle and area, and error analysis shows that the error percentage of the proposed approach reduces to a low level with actual width increases, and results of some example images are illustrated. The algorithm is efficient and can also be used for image detection of other linear structural objects. HighlightsA method of extraction of micro-cracks is proposed.Graph searching technique is used to find a path throughout crack.The crack is rebuilt by disks.The interacting cracks are separated based on the user choice.