RFS Gpiv c.s.
I am searching for a sponsor to assist me with the building of the
GPL-licensed software packages Gpiv c.s. I am writing and would like to see
included in Debian.
Summary
-------
This software provides the analyzing of images for PIV. Software for
this (research and production) technology is not included in any Linux
distro. The features, quality and performances of Gpiv s.s. are very
competitive compared to other existing, Open Source, free-ware and
commercial software for PIV. The popularity of this technique is still
increasing, but initial costs are high because of hard and software to
be needed. Experienced users are often searching for alternatives of
their commercial program after some time as it becomes obsolete for
the analysing of the images. Therefore, it might be advantageous to
include Gpiv c.s. in Debian.
Description
-----------
Gpiv c.s. concerns software for the so-called (Digital) Particle Image
Velocimetry technique (PIV); an image recording and analyzing
technology to obtain a velocity field from a fluid flow that has been
seeded with small tracer particles or smoke. Though, it also might be
applied for transportation and deformation analyses of (solid)
surfaces. It correlates small samples (interrogation area's) at
identic location of two images (an image pair) and correlates them (by
using FFT techniques) in order to estimate the local displacement. The
software has been written entirely in ANSI-C and some (example)
Perl-scripts are included in Gpivtools. The code has been published
under the GNU General Public License and only uses libraries that are
under this or other Open Source license and are resident in "main"
chapter of the Debian distribution.
Gpiv c.s. contain four different packages:
1) LIBGPIV:
Library for Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV)
This library contains functions for recording and interrogating
images from a fluid flow by means of Particle Image Velocimetry
(PIV), resulting into a velocity field of the fluid flow. It includes
the core functions for recording, interrogation, data validation,
post-processing, input/output and other utility functions.
2) GPIVTOOLS:
Command line programs for Particle Image Velocimetry
A collection of programs for recording and interrogating images that
are generated during a Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV)
experiment. This is a technique to obtain the velocity field of a
fluid flow quantitatively and is performed by tracking tracer
particles that have been seeded to a fluid. The technique is also
applied for observing deformations at surfaces of (solid) bodies. The
package contains:
.
an image recording program that uses an IEEE1394 (Firewire)
IIDC-compliant camera and a program for triggering the camera with a
light source (mostly a double cavity Nd-YAG laser). Trigger pulses
are sent over the parallel port of the computer using RealTimeLinux
and RTAI.
.
an image processing program for typical filtering and manipulation
routines that may be convenient for PIV.
.
an image interrogation program resulting into estimators of particle
image displacements.
.
validation programs to test on outliers, peak-locking effect and
velocity gradients.
.
post-processing programs for data manipulation (flipping, rotation
etc), spatial and time scaling, calculation of spatial averages and
derivatived quantities from the PIV data, like vorticity and strain.
.
miscellaneous programs and scripts to perform image format conversion,
batch-processing, pipeline processing (image evaluation, validation and
post-processing at once), calculation of time averages from a series
of PIV data sets, data-visualization and data-manipulation.
3) GPIV:
Graphic User Interface program for Particle Image Velocimetry
Gpiv is a Graphic User Interface program using the GTK/GNOME
libraries for Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). This is a technique
to obtain the velocity field of a fluid flow quantitatively and is
performed by tracking tracer particles that have been seeded to a
fluid. The technique is also applied for observing deformations at
surfaces of (solid) bodies. The program gives a quick overview of the
parameter settings of the processes and allows to change them easily,
running the processes, individually or all at once, visualizes and
displays the results. The processes that may be invoked by Gpiv are:
.
Image recording with an IEEE1394 (Firewire) IIDC-compliant camera. This
includes the triggering of the camera with the lasers by means of
RealTimeLinux and RTAI. Trigger pulses are sent over the parallel
port of the computer.
.
Image interrogation, resulting into estimators of particle
image displacements.
.
Data validation to test on outliers, peak-locking effect and
velocity gradients over the interrogation area's.
.
Data post-processing: data manipulation,spatial and time scaling to
obtain a velocity field from the PIV data, calculation of spatial
averages, vorticity and strain.
The (debianized) source packages can be obtained from at respectively:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=85208&package_id=88102&release_id=309946
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=85224&package_id=88126&release_id=309959
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=85227&package_id=88129&release_id=309962
4) Additional help is needed for a fourth package GPIVTRIG that
concerns a kernel module using RTAI. This can be found at:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=85208&package_id=88102&release_id=309946
The main web page of this project is found at:
http://gpiv.sourceforge.net
Eventually, I can send compiled packages, including .changes and .dsc
directly by email. (.diff and -orig.tar.gz do not exist as the
upstream source packages have been developed by me.)
Motivation to include it in Debian
----------------------------------
Regarding the number of participants (23) of the PIV-challenge project
(http://www.pivchallenge.org/), known free-ware and Open Source
projects (about 5 to 6), there are about 30 PIV software programs
around for this technique. A few manufactures who are selling
(closed-source) software at high rates (order of magnitude EU
10.000,-) only work on the other (MS-WIN) operating systems. A few
(three to four) Open Source projects for this technique exist as
well. Most of these (except one or two) are using commercial software
like Matlab. None of these Open source projects are included in any
Linux distribution. The Gpiv c.s is the only Open Source project that
also includes the recording of images and the controlling of camera
and light source (mostly this are Nd-Yag lasers). As far as I know,
only commercial software provide this service, apart from Gpiv c.s.
I would like to see this software included in the Debian distribution
for several reasons:
- PIV now exists for about 20 years. Its popularity is very large and is still increasing. Estimated from the number of conference visitors for this
and related techniques, there are about 2000 research groups working with it.
So, there is a potential market for Gpiv c.s.
- PIV is expensive because of the needed hard and software. This
project might be a help for aspirant users to reduce initial costs.
- PIV technology is still improving and new technologies are published
almost monthly. For experimentalists already using PIV during a some
time (4 to 5 years) their commercial software is mostly only used for
retrieving the data. The technique to interrogate the images becomes
obsolete and need to be upgraded or searched for alternatives. Also
here, Gpiv c.s. might pop in for these users.
- Debian is running on many different hardware architectures, which
not only provides a large freedom of choice for (aspirant) Gpiv c.s.
users, but also would be advantageous for these packages as the
analyzing processes are high-performance demanding, that even may need
a (Beowulf) cluster of computers.
- Including Gpiv c.s. will be good advertising for Debian in the world
of technical and scientific research, (not only for fluid mechanics
but also for material sciences PIV is applied), and probably also in
areas of chemical (and mechanical) construction and processing
industry. Actually, some advertising for the Debian project has
already been done in this context by expressing my hope that the Gpiv
c.s. will once be included in the Debian distro during my talk
"Presentation of an open source software for PIV" at the Seventh SIG32
& Pivnet workshop: Lisbon July 9-10 2004
(http://www.univ-lille1.fr/pivnet/sig32/lisbon2004/announcement_Lisbon04.html).
So, don't let me down, please
- I prefer Debian because of its open source and open-minded mentality
and philosophy in order to provide a high-quality, non-commercial
driven distribution.
- Due to my experiences with Debian and the packaging system, I
discovered that Debian has a lot to offer. To my opinion, it is easy to
maintain and technically the best under the Linux distributions. This
is my way to give something back.
Sincerely, Gerber van der Graaf
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