Optimal approach of three-dimensional microstructure reconstructions and visualizations

Three-dimensional (3D) digital image processing and segmentation techniques are very useful for reconstruction and visualization of materials microstructures to obtain information regarding 3D geometry of particles, either dispersed in the matrix phase or filled the 3D space. In this contribution, an approach to apply these techniques for 3D reconstruction, visualization and analysis of large datasets of grain structures is described and demonstrated through reconstruction and visualization of alpha-iron grains. One hundred and twenty serial sections with mean section spacing of 1.69 mu m were used for reconstruction of 3D microstructure. The final reconstructed volume measures 813 x 610 x 203 mu m(3), containing a total of over 1859 alpha-iron grains. The reconstruction results clearly revealed a nearly true 3D morphology of grains, which is very important to study the grain coarsening process. Further, the 3D visualization (surface rendering) techniques demonstrated in this approach are also very useful to study the 3D morphology of precipitates and connectivity of microstructural phases in different alloys.