An assessment of the correlation-based particle identification (CPI) method in the framework of Dual-Plane Stereo-Astigmatism (DPSA)

A synthetic study is conducted to assess the performance of the correlation-based particle identification method (CPI). As a technique developed in the context of Dual-Plane StereoAstigmatism (DPSA), the CPI method allows the identification of particle image shapes by utilizing image cross-correlation. The performance assessment addresses the influence of noise, particle density, particle image size and particle image deformation. The study shows viable results for low to moderate particle densities. Generally, a stronger performance of the CPI method is observed for small particle image sizes and pronounced particle image deformations. However, in the absence of particle overlapping, such as in the case of small particle densities, bigger particle images show a
stronger performance, since a finer numerical discretization of the particle image provides a more accurate computation of the image cross-correlation. A stronger incorporation of particle overlapping increases the rate of particle identification, however it diminishes the accuracy of particle localization and particle allocation.