Segmentation of agglomerated Ni nanoparticles
This recipe segments overlapping Ni nanoparticles on a high resolution STEM image. A size distribution of the nanoparticles can also be computed.
The recipe is performed on nano-particle samples that have been imaged using STEM technique, and for which an EDS mapping has been performed. To start, two input data are required, the EDS image and the high-resolution STEM image (in this example an HAADF image). The pixel size for the provided example images is 2.30nm.
The Ni EDS map is processed to be used as a mask to isolate the Ni elemental nano-particles out of the HAADF image. After getting the regions of interest in the HAADF image, advanced edge detection algorithm is used to account for the agglomerating nano-particles, and to detect and segment each particle.
With the final result, a label analysis module might be applied to obtain the size distribution of the particles.
An example project (NiParticles.hx) is provided with this Xtra. It applies the recipe (NiParticles_Recipe.hxisp) on the high-resolution STEM and EDS images. The recipe can be explored and executed step by step from the Image Recipe Designer workroom.