Determining particle size distributions from a single projection image

Imaging techniques employed to measure the structure of granular, particulate and porous materials are limited by scale, temporal resolution and, for biological samples, radiation exposure. This paper describes a technique for determining the distribution of particle sizes in opaque samples, for particle volume fractions less than ten percent, using a single projection radiograph. The method is based on the derived property of the additivity of the particles' spatial autocorrelation function in projection images. Simulations and experiments demonstrate the ability to use this property to determine the distribution of particle sizes in a material.