3-D CONTOUR GENERATION AND DETERMINATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS OF SHAPED AND HORIZONTALLY MILLED PLATES USING DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING

• Published in: Annals of Faculty Engineering Hunedoara Vol. 9; no. 3; p. 127
• Main Authors: Patwari, Anayet U, Arif, M D, Chowdhury, N A, Chowdhury, S I
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hunedoara Faculty of Engineering Hunedoara 01.07.2011
• Subjects: Image processing systems; Reliability; Surface roughness; Three dimensional imaging
• ISSN: 1584-2665; 2601-2332

Surface roughness is usually a detrimental by-product of all machining processes. This research work applied digital image processing capabilities of MATLAB to measure and generate 3-D contour plots of surface roughness, from digital pictures of two common types of machined surfaces (horizontally milled and shaped surfaces). Initially, calibrated plates of known R^sub a^ were used. The acquired images were converted to resized grey-scale images. The asperities and troughs of the surface roughness manifested as bright and dark regions. MATLAB was then used to determine the average pixel intensity and generate profile and 3-D contour plots. The average pixel intensity and R^sub a^ values were subsequently used to generate calibration curves for the two machining processes. Error compensation was performed and the calibration curves were tested with additional machined plates of known R^sub a^. The technique showed good accuracy and reliability. Consequently, this novel technique could be used as an economical, precise, and reliable way to measure and visualize surface roughness. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]