TY - JOUR A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Thummerer, G. A1 - Breitwieser, S. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Lecompagnon, Julien A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Jung, P. A1 - Caire, G. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Multi-dimensional reconstruction of internal defects in additively manufactured steel using photothermal super resolution combined with virtual wave based image processing N2 - We combine three different approaches to greatly enhance the defect reconstruction ability of active thermographic testing. As experimental approach, laser-based structured illumination is performed in a step-wise manner. As an intermediate signal processing step, the virtual wave concept is used in order to effectively convert the notoriously difficult to solve diffusion-based inverse problem into a somewhat milder wavebased inverse problem. As a final step, a compressed-sensing based optimization procedure is applied which efficiently solves the inverse problem by making advantage of the joint sparsity of multiple blind measurements. To evaluate our proposed processing technique, we investigate an additively manufactured stainless steel sample with eight internal defects. The concerted super resolution approach is compared to conventional thermographic reconstruction techniques and shows an at least four times better spatial resolution. KW - Active thermography KW - Additive manufacturing KW - Stainless steel KW - ADMM KW - Block regularization KW - Internal defects KW - Joint sparsity KW - Laser excitation KW - Multi-dimensional reconstruction KW - Photothermal super resolution KW - Virtual waves PY - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-525330 SN - 1551-3203 SN - 1941-0050 VL - 17 IS - 11 SP - 7368 EP - 7378 PB - IEEE CY - New York, NY AN - OPUS4-52533 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Berer, T. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Gruber, J. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Hendorfer, G. T1 - Blind structured illumination as excitation for super-resolution photothermal radiometry N2 - Using an infrared camera for radiometric imaging allows the contactless temperature measurement of multiple surface pixels simultaneously. From the measured surface data, a sub-surface structure, embedded inside a sample or tissue, can be reconstructed and imaged when heated by an excitation light pulse. The main drawback in radiometric imaging is the degradation of the spatial resolution with increasing depth, which results in blurred images for deeper lying structures. We circumvent this degradation with blind structured illumination, combined with a non-linear joint sparsity reconstruction algorithm. The ground-breaking concept of super-resolution can be transferred from optics to thermographic imaging. T2 - Conference QIRT 2018 CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 25.06.2018 KW - Thermography KW - Laser thermography KW - Super resolution PY - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-454506 SN - 978-3-940283-94-8 SP - We.3.A.2, 1 EP - 7 AN - OPUS4-45450 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Berer, T. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Gruber, J. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Hendorfer, G. T1 - Blind structured illumination as excitation for super-resolution photothermal radiometry N2 - Photothermal radiometry with an infrared camera allows the contactless temperature measurement of multiple surface pixels simultaneously. A short light pulse heats the sample. The heat propagates through the sample by diffusion and the corresponding temperature evolution is measured at the sample’s surface by an infrared camera. The main drawback in radiometric imaging is the loss of the spatial resolution with increasing depth due to heat diffusion, which results in blurred images for deeper lying structures. We circumvent this information loss due to the diffusion process by using blind structured illumination, combined with a non-linear joint sparsity reconstruction algorithm. The structured illumination is realized by parallel laser lines from a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array controlled by a random binary pattern generator. By using 150 different patterns of structured illumination and our iterative joint sparsity algorithm, it was possible to resolve 1 mm thick lines at a distance down to 0.5 mm, which results in a resolution enhancement of approximately a factor of four compared to the resolution of 5.9 mm for homogenous illuminated thermographic reconstruction. KW - Super-resolution imaging KW - Thermography KW - Blind structured illumination KW - VCSEL array PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17686733.2019.1655247 SN - 1768-6733 VL - 17 IS - 4 SP - 268 EP - 278 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Milton, UK AN - OPUS4-49122 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Jung, P. A1 - Caire, G. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Super resolution laser line scanning thermography N2 - In this paper we propose super resolution measurement and post-processing strategies that can be applied in thermography using laser line scanning. The implementation of these techniques facilitates the separation of two closely spaced defects and avoids the expected deterioration of spatial resolution due to heat diffusion. The experimental studies were performed using a high-power laser as heat source in combination with pulsed thermography measurements (step scanning) or with continuous heating measurements (continuous scanning). Our work shows that laser line step scanning as well as continuous scanning both can be used within our developed super resolution (SR) techniques. Our SR techniques make use of a compressed sensing based algorithm in post- processing, the so-called iterative joint sparsity (IJOSP) approach. The IJOSP method benefits from both - the sparse nature of defects in space as well as from the similarity of each measurement. In addition, we show further methods to improve the reconstruction quality e.g. by simple manipulations in thermal image processing such as by considering the effect of the scanning motion or by using different optimization algorithms within the IJOSP approach. These super resolution image processing methods are discussed so that the advantages and disadvantages of each method can be extracted. Our contribution thus provides new approaches for the implementation of super resolution techniques in laser line scanning thermography and informs about which experimental and post-processing parameters should be chosen to better separate two closely spaced defects. KW - Super resolution KW - Laser thermography KW - Compressed sensing KW - Laser scanning KW - Joint sparsity PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-509796 SN - 0143-8166 VL - 134 SP - 106279 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-50979 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Jung, P. A1 - Caire, G. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Photothermal super resolution imaging: A comparison of different thermographic reconstruction techniques N2 - This paper presents different super resolution reconstruction techniques to overcome the spatial resolution limits in thermography. Pseudo-random blind structured illumination from a onedimensional laser array is used as heat source for super resolution thermography. Pulsed thermography measurements using an infrared camera with a high frame rate sampling lead to a huge amount of data. To handle this large data set, thermographic reconstruction techniques are an essential step of the overall reconstruction process. Four different thermographic reconstruction techniques are analyzed based on the Fourier transform amplitude, principal component analysis, virtual wave reconstruction and the maximum thermogram. The application of those methods results in a sparse basis representation of the measured data and serves as input for a compressed sensing based algorithm called iterative joint sparsity (IJOSP). Since the thermographic reconstruction techniques have a high influence on the result of the IJOSP algorithm, this paper Highlights their Advantages and disadvantages. KW - Super resolution KW - Compressed sensing KW - Laser thermography KW - Virtual wave KW - Defect reconstruction PY - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ndteint.2020.102228 VL - 111 SP - 2228 PB - Elsevier Ltd. CY - Netherlands AN - OPUS4-50419 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Gruber, J. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Hendorfer, G. A1 - Haltmeier, M. T1 - Blind structured illumination as excitation for super-resolution photothermal radiometry N2 - Photothermal radiometry with an infrared camera allows the contactless temperature measurement of multiple surface pixels simultaneously. A short light pulse heats the sample. The heat propagates through the sample by diffusion and the corresponding temperature increase is measured at the samples surface by an infrared camera. The main drawback in radiometric imaging is the loss of the spatial resolution with increasing depth due to heat diffusion, which results in blurred images for deeper lying structures. We circumvent this information loss due to the diffusion process by using blind structured illumination, combined with a non-linear joint sparsity reconstruction algorithm. T2 - Fifth NDTonAIR Training Event: Thermography Workshop CY - Linz, Austria DA - 13.02.2019 KW - Super resolution KW - Thermography KW - Laser Thermography KW - Compressed Sensing KW - NDT PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-49912 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Berer, T. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Gruber, J. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Hendorfer, G. T1 - Blind structured illumination as excitation for super-resolution photothermal radiometry N2 - The main drawback in radiometric imaging is the degradation of the spatial resolution with increasing depth, which results in blurred images for deeper lying structures. We circumvent this degradation with blind structured illumination, combined with a non-linear joint sparsity reconstruction algorithm. We demonstrate this by imaging a line pattern and a star-shaped structure through a metal sheet with a resolution four times better than the width of the thermal point-spread-function. The ground-breaking concept of super-resolution can be transferred from optics to diffusive imaging by defining a thermal point-spread-function similar to the Abbe limit for a certain optical wavelength. T2 - 14th Quantitative InfraRed Thermography Conference, QIRT 2018 CY - Berlin, Germany DA - 25.06.2018 KW - Thermography KW - Laser Thermography KW - Compressed Sensing KW - Super Resolution PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-49940 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thummerer, G. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Hirsch, Philipp Daniel A1 - Ziegler, Mathias A1 - Burgholzer, P. T1 - Photothermal Image Reconstruction in Opaque Media with Virtual Wave Backpropagation N2 - Thermographic reconstruction of defects that lie in the bulk of a sample is a difficult task because entropy production during heat diffusion leads to information loss. To reconstruct defects one has to solve an inverse heat conduction problem. The quality of the reconstruction is closely related to the information content of the observed data set that is reflected by the decreasing ability to spatially resolve a defect with growing defect depth. In this work we show a 2D reconstruction of rectangular slots with different width-to-depth ratios in a metallic sample. For this purpose, we apply the virtual wave concept and incorporate positivity and sparsity as prior information to overcome the diffusion-based information loss partially. The reconstruction is based on simulated and experimental pulse thermography data. In the first reconstruction step, we compute a virtual wave field from the surface temperature data. This allows us, in the second step, to use ultrasonic backpropagation methods for image reconstruction. KW - Virtual wave concept KW - Thermography KW - Photothermal Technique KW - Image reconstruction PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-506166 VL - 112 SP - 102239 PB - Elsevier Ltd. CY - Netherlands AN - OPUS4-50616 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Thiel, Erik A1 - Karagianni, Christina A1 - Hirsch, Philipp Daniel A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Mayr, G. A1 - Jung, P. A1 - Caire, G. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Photothermal super resolution image reconstruction using structured 1D laser illumination N2 - The separation of two closely spaced defects in fields of Thermographic NDE is very challenging. The diffusive nature of thermal waves leads to a fundamental limitation in spatial resolution. Therefore, super resolution image reconstruction can be used. A new concerted ansatz based on spatially structured heating and joint sparsity of the signal ensemble allows for an improved reconstruction of closely spaced defects. This new technique has been studied using a 1D laser array with randomly chosen illumination pattern. This paper presents the results after applying super resolution algorithms, such as the iterative joint sparsity (IJOSP) algorithm, to our processed measurement data. Different data processing techniques before applying the IJOSP algorithm as well as the influence of regularization parameters in the data processing techniques are discussed. Moreover, the degradation of super resolution reconstruction goodness by the choice of experimental parameters such as laser line width or number of measurements is shown. The application of the super resolution results in a spatial resolution enhancement of approximately a factor of four which leads to a better separation of two closely spaced defects. T2 - Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation Conference 2019 CY - Portland, OR, USA DA - 14.07.2019 KW - Super resolution KW - Photothermal KW - Thermography KW - Laser PY - 2019 SP - Paper 8593, 1 PB - ASME AN - OPUS4-50924 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Lecompagnon, Julien A1 - Hirsch, Philipp Daniel A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Jung, P. A1 - Caire, G. A1 - Ziegler, Mathias T1 - Laser excited super resolution thermal imaging for nondestructive inspection of internal defects N2 - A photothermal super resolution technique is proposed for an improved inspection of internal defects. To evaluate the potential of the laser-based thermographic technique, an additively manufactured stainless steel specimen with closely spaced internal cavities is used. Four different experimental configurations in transmission, reflection, stepwise and continuous scanning are investigated. The applied image post-processing method is based on compressed sensing and makes use of the block sparsity from multiple measurement events. This concerted approach of experimental measurement strategy and numerical optimization enables the resolution of internal defects and outperforms conventional thermographic inspection techniques. KW - Super Resolution KW - Laser Thermography KW - Non Destructive Testing KW - Comressed Sensing KW - Inverse Problem KW - Thermography PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-519016 VL - 10 IS - 1 SP - 22357 PB - Springer Nature AN - OPUS4-51901 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ahmadi, Samim A1 - Lecompagnon, Julien A1 - Hirsch, Philipp Daniel A1 - Burgholzer, P. A1 - Jung, P. A1 - Caire, G. T1 - Laser excited super resolution thermal imaging for nondestructive inspection of internal defects N2 - A photothermal super resolution technique is proposed for an improved inspection of internal defects. To evaluate the potential of the laser-based thermographic technique, an additively manufactured stainless steel specimen with closely spaced internal cavities is used. Four different experimental configurations in transmission, reflection, stepwise and continuous scanning are investigated. The applied image post-processing method is based on compressed sensing and makes use of the block sparsity from multiple measurement events. This concerted approach of experimental measurement strategy and numerical optimization enables the resolution of internal defects and outperforms conventional thermographic inspection techniques. KW - Super resolution KW - Photothermal KW - Imaging KW - Compressed sensing KW - Internal defects KW - Nondestructive testing PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-518866 UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.03341 SN - 2331-8422 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Cornell University CY - Ithaca, NY AN - OPUS4-51886 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -