Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726

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Engineering Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Experimental accuracy of two dimensional strain measurements using

Digital Image Correlation
Neil A. Hoult a,⇑, W. Andy Take a, Chris Lee b, Michael Dutton a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Queen’s University, Ellis Hall, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6
b
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The measurement of strain has always been central to developments in structural engineering. As struc-
Received 2 August 2011 tures around the world reach the end of their intended service life, there is a need for more robust field
Revised 14 May 2012 monitoring techniques to determine, in conjunction with numerical models, if these structures are still fit
Accepted 16 August 2012
for purpose. Current strain gage technologies are only able to offer a limited number of discrete measure-
Available online 6 October 2012
ments, which often is not enough data to assess complex structures. This paper presents an alternative
technique for measuring strain using digital images called Digital Image Correlation (DIC) that allows
Keywords:
for the measurement of 2-D strain fields. The accuracy that can be achieved in physical experiments
Strain gages
Imaging techniques
where sources of error such as lighting and camera quality are present is investigated. A series of tension
Monitoring tests on steel plates are conducted allowing measurements from the DIC technique to be compared to
Tests measurements from conventional foil strain gages. Out-of-plane motion is identified as one of the most
Instrumentation significant potential sources of strain measurement error when using DIC. Five solutions for significantly
reducing the effects of out-of-plane motion are presented and three of these solutions are applied to the
steel plate experiment. Using these solutions it is possible to achieve mean strain errors of less than 5 le
when comparing DIC to foil strain gage measurements, which suggests that the DIC technique has the
potential to replace conventional strain gages. Areas of future research are also introduced.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction acquisition constraints. Foil gages have long-term stability issues

Strain measurements have been central to the development of
structural engineering theory for decades. The ability to measure
strain accurately and precisely will become increasingly more
important for field monitoring as assets that were built during
the infrastructure booms of the last century continue to deteriorate
with age. Engineers will require detailed strain data taken in a vari-
ety of locations on these complex structures so that they can accu-
rately assess their remaining service life and capacity. However,
the two most commonly used methods for measuring strain,
vibrating wire and foil strain gages, have several significant disad-
vantages. First of all, they are only capable of providing linear point
readings of strain, which means a significant number of gages are
required in order to measure strain distributions or fields. Also,
each one of these gages has to be wired separately, and so the
ultimate number of gages is often limited by wiring and data
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 416 533 3436; fax: +1 613 533 2128.
E-mail addresses: neil.hoult@gmail.com (N.A. Hoult), andy.take@civil.queensu.
ca (W. Andy Take), christopher.st.lee@gmail.com (C. Lee), m.dutton@gmail.com
(M. Dutton).
and so, whilst they can be used in the laboratory, they are not gen-
erally appropriate for long-term field monitoring. Vibrating wire
strain gages are much more stable but the cost of each gage makes
them prohibitively expensive for the type of pervasive monitoring
that will be required to validate complex structural assessments.
Finally, both foil and vibrating wire gages need to be bonded to
the structure, which can have a significant impact on the strain
measurements if the stiffness of the structural material is not sig-
nificantly greater than the stiffness of the strain gage (e.g. [1,2]).
A technique known as Digital Image Correlation (DIC) repre-
sents an alternative to conventional strain gages for measuring
surface strains in that it overcomes many of the disadvantages out-
lined above. DIC compares two digital images (a reference image
and a deformed image) in order to determine how much move-
ment has occurred between the two. This movement can then be
used to determine strains as described in Section 2. It should be
noted that since the technique requires the use of digital cameras,
it is not suitable for measuring internal strains or strains in
members that are not visually accessible. For the monitoring of
existing structures, these accessibility limitations often apply to
conventional strain gages as well, and so this technique could be
a potential replacement. Until now DIC has been used as an alter-
native strain measurement technique in controlled lab settings but

0141-0296/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2012.08.018
 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726
has shown promise for field monitoring. However, in order to at-
tempt to use this technique for field monitoring, improved strain
measurement accuracy is required, which is the subject of this pa-
per. Other issues that are field specific and that go beyond the
scope of this paper, such as varying light conditions and tempera-
ture changes, still need to be addressed in greater detail, and are
the subject of ongoing research.
The following paper examines the results of a series of tests
conducted on a steel plate in tension to determine what level of
strain resolution can practically be achieved. The test setup will
be introduced and the strain measurements from the first test will
be discussed. Those results indicate that the out-of-plane move-
ment of the test specimen has a significant impact on the strain
measurements. An examination of the impact of out-of-plane
movements will then be presented and five approaches to reducing
the effects of out-of-plane motion will be discussed. Results from a
second plate test will then be presented to illustrate the level of
strain resolution that is possible in a lab setting once out-of-plane
motion is compensated for. Further research challenges and con-
siderations will then be discussed.
2. Background
The DIC method has been used in the research community since
the early 1980s [3,4] and takes a number of different forms. The
technique that will be the focus of this paper is known as 2-D DIC
and involves the use of a single camera to measure displacements
in a plane (e.g. [5]). This technique has the advantage that it only re-
quires a single camera, thus minimizing the equipment costs and
allowing for additional measurement areas to be added without
requiring these measurements areas to overlap. However, it has
one significant disadvantage and that is all the displacements must
occur within a single stationary measurement plane or else errone-
ous results will be generated. Researchers have overcome this limi-
tation by introducing 2.5-D (e.g. [6]) and 3-D DIC systems (e.g. [7])
that use multiple cameras to measure a 3-D displacement field.
These systems tend to be more expensive and specialized and are
thus not widely available in the structural engineering research
community. The goal of this research project was to modify a system
that used readily available and relatively inexpensive digital single
lens reflex (DSLR) cameras with an analysis package that has been
used extensively in the geotechnical research community (GeoPIV,
[5]) for use in structural engineering research. The main challenge
of this research involves increasing the strain measurement accu-
racy of the system, which has previously been used to measure geo-
technical strains that are typically several orders of magnitude
larger than structural strains.
The DIC method has previously been used by researchers to
measure axial strains for artificially and experimentally generated
images, with varying degrees of success. Smith et al. [8] reported a
standard deviation in strain readings of 100 le. Though they used a
concentric lens, which will minimize the effects of out-of-plane
distortion as discussed later, their camera resolution
(640  480 pixels) as well as their bicubic spline subpixel interpo-
lation scheme will have had a negative effect on their measure-
ment accuracy. Displacement errors produced using the DIC
technique are generally fractions of a pixel and when measuring
strain, the effect of this error can be reduced by using a larger gage
length (in pixels) to produce a lower strain error. Thus higher res-
olution cameras (used in the current work) enhance measurement
accuracy by allowing for larger gage lengths. Smith et al. also used
a bicubic spline to obtain their subpixel displacement measure-
ments whereas in the current work an eight coefficient filter based
on the B-spline transformation, which Sutton et al. [7] present as
the optimal technique in terms of minimizing measurement error,
719
is used. Wattrisse et al. [9] obtained mean strain errors of 210 le,
but similar to Smith et al. they used a lower resolution camera
(1317  1035 pixels) as well as a less accurate subpixel interpola-
tion scheme (a bicubic spline). Additionally, Wattrisse et al. used a
lens with a small focal length of 55 mm. The focal length of the lens
is an important factor in improving strain measurement error, with
larger focal lengths leading to smaller errors as will be discussed
later. Hung and Voloshin [10] performed a uniaxial test on an alu-
minum plate and obtained average errors of 5.8%. Unfortunately
the details of their experimental setup and subpixel interpolation
scheme were not presented and so the potential causes of this
strain error relative to the proposed approach cannot be evaluated.
Whilst these results show promise and may be acceptable in some
applications, they are not comparable to what can be achieved by
conventional strain gages. Additionally, for field monitoring, where
structures are not taken up to the ultimate load and where the
measured strains may well be less than 100 le, measurement
accuracy increases of one or even two orders of magnitude are re-
quired over those previously reported in the literature.
The DIC method discretizes a digital image into smaller areas
known as subsets. The movement of these subsets in a series of dig-
ital images is then tracked between subsequent images. The strain
resolution that can be measured is a function of the software’s ability
to track the movement of these subsets with sub-pixel accuracy.
The strain measurement resolution is a function of gage length
(the larger the denominator that the same subpixel measurement
is divided by, the smaller the percent error). However measurement
resolution is also affected by (i) the variation in surface texture of the
test specimen, (ii) fluctuating light conditions and (iii) the quality of
the camera (digital cameras cannot reproduce the same image of
intensity values of a stationary scene perfectly between multiple
exposures, instead there is a slight jitter between sequential images
[11]). The impact of texture on strain resolution is a function of the
variation in intensity of the texture, which in turn affects how un-
ique a particular subset is within the image [12]. The effect of texture
on strain resolution is a subject of ongoing research but the texture
used in this study should provide close to the optimum strain reso-
lution and was kept constant in all the experiments discussed. In or-
der to minimize the impact that (ii) and (iii) had on the strain
measurements, two types of averaging were performed on the data.
First of all, ten images were taken at each strain measurement step
during the steel plate tests. These 10 images were then merged to-
gether to form a single image using MATLAB, which created a series
of average images on which the DIC method was used. The strain re-
sults were also averaged together using an approach based on
Mohr’s circle of strain, which is discussed in Section 3.1, to further
reduce the impact of all the potential sources of error.
3. Plate test set-up
In order to determine the strain measurement accuracy that is
possible with the proposed 2-D DIC approach, a uniaxial tension
test was conducted. The test specimen was a steel plate measuring
101 mm wide by 9 mm thick. The plate was tested in a MTS
hydraulic self reacting frame as illustrated in Fig. 1. The overall
length of the plate was 673 mm and the distance between the grips
of test frame was approximately 500 mm.
Foil strain gage rosettes were attached to both sides of the plate
in the center at a height of approximately 408 mm from the bot-
tom of the plate (as illustrated in Fig. 2) and 320 mm above the
bottom grip when mounted in the MTS test frame. This ensured
that the gages were not in a region that would be susceptible to
end effects. The use of strain gage rosettes allowed the shear strain
to be determined using Eq. (1):
c ¼ 2e45  e0  e90 ð1Þ
720 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726

Camera 1 Camera 2
Steel
plate

Foil gages 500

(both sides) mm

Speckle
pattern
(both sides)

Fig. 1. Steel plate tension sample installed in testing frame to compare strain measurements from foil strain gage rosettes and digital image correlation using two cameras.

101 mm

Steel plate 2000 pixels (67.9 mm)

(9 mm thick)

265 mm
Multiaxial foil
strain gage
500

1000

133 mm 1500

2000

2500 32 x 32 pixel subsets

275 mm 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

Painted X (pixels)
region for
DIC analysis

Fig. 2. Steel plate test specimen.

where e0, e45 and e90 represent the strains at 0°, 45° and 90° on the
strain gage rosette, respectively. Once two points on the Mohr’s cir-
cle (e0, c/2 and e90, c/2) had been determined, it was then possible
to determine the principal strains using these results. These values
were then used to verify the accuracy of the DIC system.
The digital images were acquired using two Canon EOS Rebel XTi
cameras with 10.1 megapixel resolution. The cameras were placed
on tripods on either side of the MTS test frame as illustrated in Fig. 1.
As discussed earlier, a texture was applied to both sides of the plate
as illustrated in Fig. 2. The region with texture on the plate was located
at a distance greater than 100 mm away from the grips of the testing
machine to avoid end affects interfering with the DIC measurements.
The plate test was run in load stages of 19 kN, which corre-
sponded to a change of approximately 100 le per load stage. At each
stage, the load was held constant while 10 pictures were taken with
each camera. It is worth noting that the MTS machine does not actu-
ally hold the load perfectly constant but instead holds the load to
within a range of ±50 N. However, this load variation corresponds
to a strain variation of less than 1 le and was therefore not consid-
ered significant. The applied load and strain gage data were recorded
at a set time interval of 10 Hz throughout the duration of the test.
The plate specimens were loaded to a total load of approximately
190 kN, which corresponded to a strain of 1000 le. Because the
maximum load was below the yield load for the plate (272 kN),
the same test specimen could be used for multiple tests.
3.1. Initial strain measurements
The strains for each plate test were calculated using the DIC
method and an approach based on Mohr’s circle of strain with a
 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726 721

subset layout as illustrated in Fig. 2. By using three pairs of patches 100

(oriented at 0°, 45° and 90° from each other), the axial and shear
strains can be calculated for these pairs of points as you would
for a strain gauge rosette (using Eq. (1)). This calculation can then
be repeated for every group of three patch pairs seen in Fig. 2. By
further realizing that all of these points (each set of axial and shear
strains) must lie on the Mohr’s circle of strain, this can be used as
an averaging technique to obtain more accurate strain measure-
ments by determining the circle of best fit through the points (as
seen in Fig. 3b). It can be seen that the diameter of the measure-
ment circle is 2000 pixels and that 32 by 32 pixel subsets were
tracked on both sides of the steel plate using the two camera setup
shown in Fig. 1. The measured load–deformation response of the
steel plate captured using foil gages and DIC image analysis are
presented in Fig. 3a. The Mohr’s circle of strain acquired from both
cameras and the strain gages are plotted in Fig. 3b for the maxi-
mum applied load of 187 kN.
It can be seen from Fig. 3 that though the general trend of the
foil strain gage behavior has been captured by the DIC method,
there is also a significant variation between the three Mohr’s cir-
cles as well as the load versus principal strain behavior. Interest-
ingly though, the diameters of all three Mohr’s circle in Fig. 3b
are approximately the same and the variation between the three
is in the location of the center of each circle. This suggests that
there is an apparent isotropic strain offset between the strains
measured by the foil strain gages and the DIC system. This obser-
vation is corroborated by Fig. 3a, where it can be seen that the
DIC measurements for both principal strains can be fit by a linear
relationship that has a different slope than that measured by the
foil strain gages. The discrepancy between the DIC measurements
and the foil gages is investigated further in Fig. 4 where the error
in principal strain is plotted against load stage. It is also worth not-
ing that whilst the strain measured by one camera is greater than
the strain measured using the foil gages, the strain measured by
the other camera is less. The symmetry between the similar mag-
nitude (but opposite sign) of the errors observed on both sides of
the loaded steel plate suggests that there is a correction factor that,
if determined, would compensate for this variation. However, first
it is necessary to determine the cause of this variation, including
why the cameras on opposite sides of the plate test setup give dif-
ferent results, before developing the required adjustment factors,
which is the focus of the next section.
3.2. Out-of-plane movement
In order to determine the cause of the varying strain data from
the DIC system, it is first necessary to explore why the Mohr’s
εv
50
ε
h
0
εv
-50
ε
h
Camera 1
Camera 2
-100
0 50 100 150 200
Load (kN)
Fig. 4. Difference in principal strain readings between foil gages and uncorrected
DIC image analysis results observed on both sides of the steel plate (foil gages on
both sides of plate confirm no flexural strains).
circles measured by the DIC system are offset but have the correct
diameter. The diameter of the Mohr’s circle of strain is a function of
the maximum measured shear strain. Thus, the fact that the diam-
eter of the circles is constant indicates that there is no variation in
the measured shear strain between the foil strain gages and the
DIC system. The only way for this to be the case is if the variation
in axial strain is the same in every direction radially around the
strain measurement circle. That is to say, every subset pair used
to measure the strain moves closer together or farther apart by
an equal amount (i.e. there is an isotropic change) in addition to
measuring the change in displacement due to the plate being
loaded. There are two potential reasons for an isotropic expansion
or contraction of the plate. The first potential cause is temperature
since significant variations in temperature would cause the plate to
expand or contract uniformly. However, temperature can be ruled
out as it would also have been measured by the foil gages and it
would appear as either an expansion or contraction to both cam-
eras (whereas in this case the measurements from one camera
indicated the plate expanded while the measurements from the
other camera indicated it contracted). The second potential cause
of a uniform change in strain would be out of plane movement
of the plate either towards or away from the camera. As the spec-
imen gets closer to the camera, the subsets appear to get farther
apart from each other in the digital image, which is interpreted
by the analysis software as a tensile strain. A similar effect can

200
600
εh εv
400
150
200

100 0 εh εv
-200
50 Camera 1 -400
Camera 2
(a) Foil gage -600 (b)
0
-500 0 500 1000 -500 0 500 1000
6 6
Principal strain, ε (x10 ) Normal strain, ε (x10 )

Fig. 3. (a) Measured load–deformation response of steel plate captured using foil and DIC strain gage rosettes, and (b) inconsistency in Mohr’s circle of strain for load 187 kN
measured using DIC image analysis on the two sides of the steel plate.
722 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726
be observed as the specimen moves farther away, but is compres-
sive in terms of the apparent isotropic strain.
To explore the effects of this out-of-plane movement, a series of
experiments were conducted using the plate from the tensile tests
and the DSLR camera. The plate was held stationary and the cam-
era was moved toward the plate using a precision milling machine.
A picture was taken of the plate and then the camera was moved
by 0.1 mm towards the plate and another picture was taken. This
process was repeated until a total of 4 mm of camera movement
was reached.
Fig. 5a shows the resulting subset movement from the test. One
can see that the subsets move outward radially from the center of
the circle during the 0.1 mm increment of movement towards to
the camera. It should be emphasized that the plate was not
strained during this test and it was left stationary as the camera
was moved towards it. Fig. 5b is a plot of the Mohr’s circle for three
different differential displacements from the plate movement test.
The first important observation is that the circles are not actually
circles but a cluster of points around the center of what would
be the circle. These Mohr’s circles with essentially zero radii and
thus no apparent shear strain corroborate the earlier observation
that the strain variations in the plate tests did not induce any addi-
tional shear strains. The second important observation is that the
plate movement creates a uniform shift in the axial strains. Both
of these observations lead to the conclusion that the difference be-
tween the DIC measured strains and the foil gage strains are caused
by out-of-plane movement of the specimen. This conclusion is fur-
ther validated by the fact that the results from one camera sug-
gested the plate was moving towards it while the results from
the other camera suggested the plate was moving away. Having
identified the cause of this strain variation, if a relationship be-
tween the amount of out-of-plane movement and the apparent
strain can be found, this offset can be subtracted from the DIC mea-
surements to correct for it.
Fig. 6a is a plot of apparent axial strain or strain error, eerror, with
distance moved by the camera towards the plate. This relationship
is plotted for a camera with a 55 mm focal length and three differ-
ent initial distances away from the plate. One can see that the
strain error is a function of both the initial distance away from
the plate, y, and the distance moved towards the plate, dy, as the
slopes of the three lines are different. In general, the closer the sub-
ject is to the camera, the larger the influence of the out-of-plane
movement on apparent strain error. This relationship can be more
fully understood through the plotting of the ratio of camera move-
ment to initial distance, dy/y in Fig. 6b. This figure demonstrates
that this ratio is equal to the strain error. Fig. 7 illustrates why this
is the case using a simple pin-hole model representation of the dig-
ital image formation process. Using similar triangles it can be seen
(a)
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
X (pixels)
Fig. 5. (a) Observed pattern of apparent deformations of steel plate during out of plane movement towards camera resulting in (b) linear accumulation of isotropic strain
error with out of plane movement.
that the horizontal viewing angle of the lens (as determined by the
focal length) results in a physical gage length of X0 for the sample
in its original position at a distance y from the projective center.
For a given movement towards the camera, dy, a smaller physical
distance, X1, is captured within the same field of view. As a result,
the corresponding strain error, eerror, is a function of the gage
length, x. The gage length is in turn a function of the distance away
from the camera, y. This relationship has previously been derived
by Sutton et al. [7] and is given in Eq. (2):
dy
eerror ¼ ð2Þ
y
The next section will explore methods for eliminating the strain
error based on this relationship.
3.3. Out-of-plane movement corrections
There are several potential methods for correcting the mea-
sured strain results for the error due to out-of-plane movement.
The first two, summarized by Sutton et al. [7], include method (i)
in which the out-of-plane strain error is calculated using Eq. (2)
and direct measurements of the distance from the camera to the
specimen and the change in that distance, and method (ii) in which
the magnitude of out-of-plane error is minimized by significantly
increasing the effective distance between the camera and the spec-
imen, y. This could either be achieved by physically moving the
camera farther back from the test specimen or by using a telecen-
tric lens in which the effective camera distance is significantly in-
creased due to the special optics of the lens (i.e. the paths of light
entering the lens are nearly parallel). In this paper, three additional
potential methods for correcting out-of-plane strain error are pro-
posed. These include method (iii) in which the out-of-plane strain
error is corrected using a knowledge of the material properties of
the specimen to constrain the problem, method (iv) in which two
cameras (one placed on either side of the specimen) are used to
measure the magnitude and direction of the out-of-plane strain
error, and finally method (v) proposes that the out-of-plane strain
error could be calculated if a fixed (unstrained) reference length is
included within the image of the test specimen.
Solution (i) is difficult to implement for the strain resolution re-
quired. To generate a strain error of 5 le (which as suggested is the
required minimum accuracy for field monitoring) with a specimen
to camera distance of 1000 mm, the out-of-plane movement calcu-
lated using Eq. (2) would be just 0.005 mm. This small displace-
ment is below the noise floor of most commonly used
displacement measurement instruments, such as linear resistance
displacement transducers.
(b)
2000
1000 Out of plane movement (mm)
0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
0
-1000
-2000
0 2000 4000 6000
6
Apparent normal strain, ε (x10 )
 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726 723

10000 10000
(a) y=257 mm (b)
8000 336 mm 8000

6000 6000
405 mm

4000 4000

2000 2000

0 0
0 1 2 3 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01
dy (mm) dy/y

Fig. 6. (a) Apparent isotropic strain due to movement of steel plate towards the camera, and (b) comparison of experimental data to simple pin-hole camera error solution.

Physical and pixel dimensions Position of steel plate

of CCD sensor, xCCD , uCCD,
respectively

f y

Viewing angle Viewing angle

of Camera 1 X1 X0
of Camera 2

dy
Out of plane
displacement, dy

Fig. 7. Simple pin hole camera model illustrating the effect of an increment of out of plane movement, dy, on the image formed by cameras viewing both sides of the steel
plate.

Solution (ii) can be accomplished in one of three ways: by plac-
ing the camera farther away from the specimen, by using a more
advanced lens or a combination of the two. Placing the camera far-
ther away can be problematic as though it reduces the error due to
out of plane movement it also reduces the strain measurement
accuracy of the DIC method and thus trades one source of error
for another. One way to overcome this is to use a lens with a longer
focal length, which has the effect of reducing the field of view at
larger distances, thus increasing the number of pixels over a given
gauge length. An approach using this solution was used for the
plate tests that will be discussed later. However the distance be-
tween the specimen and the camera can also be increased by using
a telecentric lens, which uses optics to increase the effective cam-
era to specimen distance, y, in Eq. (2) without actually physically
moving the camera [7]. The downside of these lenses is their high
cost (i.e. not conducive to the large number of monitoring locations
required in field applications) and their very limited field of view
(usually constrained to the diameter of the lens). Because of these
issues, the telecentric lens option was not explored further in this
study.
Solution (iii) takes advantage of the Mohr’s circle approach
proposed by the authors and of the Poisson’s ratio, m, of the
specimen. As noted previously, the principal strains, e1 and e2,
are effectively offset by the out-of-plane strain error, eerror. As
a result, the ratio of the principal strains will no longer yield
the correct Poisson’s ratio. Instead, the true Poisson’s ratio, m,
of the specimen will be
e2  eerror
m¼
e1  eerror
Therefore, a potential method of correcting the strains for the
out-of-plane movement can be calculated by rearranging Eq. (3)
to solve for the out-of-plane strain error, eerror:
me1 þ e2
eerror ¼ ð4Þ
ð1 þ mÞ
This equation indicates that a priori knowledge of the Poisson’s
ratio makes it possible to directly calculate the out-of-plane strain
error, which can then be subtracted from the results for uniaxial
testing. This method is employed in the next section to correct
the strain data from the DIC method for a uniaxial test in which
the specimen was subject to a small amount of out-of-plane move-
ment. It is worth noting that this method does not distinguish be-
tween changes in strain due to out-of-plane movement and
changes due to temperature as they both appear as a uniform
change in strain. As such, it is important to record the change in
temperature if it will vary during the measurement period so that
thermal strain changes can be corrected for independently from
out-of-plane strain errors.
Solution (iv) uses two cameras placed on either side of the test
specimen to infer the strain within the specimen. For each camera,
the measured strain increment observed during a loading incre-
ment, De1, will be a sum of the real strain increment, Dereal, and
the error associated with out-of-plane distortion of each camera
dy1 dy
De1 ¼ Dereal þ ; De2 ¼ Dereal þ 2 ð5Þ
y1 y2
where the subscripts 1, and 2, relate to cameras 1 and 2,
ð3Þ
respectively.
724 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726
Because the magnitude of the out-of-plane movement, dy, and
the real strain increment of the sample, Dereal, is the same for both
cameras, Eq. (5) can be simplified to calculate dy,
De1  De2
dy ¼
1=y1 þ 1=y2
which can subsequently be used to correct for out-of-plane motion
as per Eq. (2). This method is therefore similar to method (i), how-
ever it has the benefit of having a much easier mechanism in which
to calculate the very small (but highly relevant) magnitude of out-
of-plane movement than attempting to measure it directly with dis-
placement sensors. If both cameras are placed at an identical effec-
tive distance from the specimen, y, the strain errors will be equal in
magnitude but opposite in sign.
Finally, solution (v) would use an object of known dimensions
in the same plane as the test specimen. This object would not be
fully bonded to the test specimen and so would not strain under
load, but would move in the same plane. Thus any apparent
changes in the object’s dimensions could be used to calculate the
amount of out-of-plane movement using Eq. (2). The practicality
or effectiveness of this approach has not yet been explored fully
as it is a subject of ongoing research. As a result, this potential
method for out-of-plane strain error is mentioned in this paper
for the sake of completeness but is not discussed further here.
4. Adjusted strain measurements
In order to validate the proposed out-of-plane correction using
the Poisson’s ratio approach (solution iii), the variation in apparent
Poisson’s ratio was calculated for each load increment using both
the foil gage and DIC strain measurements for the test with a small
amount of out-of-plane displacement. This data, included as
Fig. 8a, indicates that while the foil gage reported a constant Pois-
son’s ratio of 0.283 (consistent with the material properties of
steel), the strain values derived from DIC either greatly over or
underreported the Poisson’s ratio due to strain errors caused by
out-of-plane motion. As expected from Eqs. (3) and (4), this caused
the Mohr’s circle of strain to be horizontally shifted by a strain er-
ror, eerror, as illustrated in Fig. 8b. To test if the magnitude of this
error was well captured by the Poisson’s ratio correction, the steel
plate test results were adjusted by subtracting the strain error gi-
ven by Eq. (4). The post-correction results are given in Fig. 9, which
shows both the load versus the principal strains as well as the
Mohr’s circle at an axial load of 180 kN in which the Poisson’s ratio
is set at 0.283. It can be seen from Fig. 9 that the DIC method re-
sults from both cameras are now in good agreement with the foil
strain gage results after employing the Poisson’s ratio correction.
1 ε error
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 50 100 150
Load (kN)
Fig. 8. (a) Apparent Poisson’s ratio calculated from DIC and strain gage readings, and (b) description of possible correction method based on a priori knowledge of Poisson’s
ratio.
The residual error in the principal strain error after the Poisson’s
ratio correction had been applied is presented in Fig. 10a. The
mean error in the vertical strain was +11.6 le, whereas the mean
error for the horizontal strain was observed to be 3.2 le.
ð6Þ A similar validation exercise was performed using solution (iv)
for the test with the small amount of out-of-plane displacement
based on the benefit provided through the placement of two cam-
eras (one on each side of the test specimen) to correct for out-of-
plane motion. The residual error in the principal strain error after
the two camera correction had been applied is presented in
Fig. 10b. The mean error in the vertical strain was +8.0 le whereas
the mean error for the horizontal strain was observed to be
6.8 le. These values of residual error are very similar to that
achieved using the Poisson’s ratio correction method. It should
be noted that the residual errors associated with the two camera
technique had a slight increase in error with load level; however,
this technique has a considerable advantage in that it does not re-
quire a priori knowledge of the Poisson’s ratio.
Whilst these results are adequate for lab testing in which spec-
imens tend to undergo large strain ranges, these errors are poten-
tially too large for field monitoring where strain changes may be
less than 100 le. In order to determine if, in the absence of out-
of-plane motion, it is possible to achieve better strain measure-
ment accuracy, a second tension test was conducted where the
alignment of the testing machine was adjusted to produce minimal
out-of-plane movement. Although the adjustments ensured that
the load was applied as concentrically as possible, it was not pos-
sible to achieve ideal concentric loading. As such, there was still a
small amount of out of plane loading in this test that had to be cor-
rected for. The second plate test was conducted with a single Ca-
non Digital Rebel XTi camera placed at a similar distance to the
plate (1.08 m versus 1.576 m and 1.280 m for the cameras in the
previous test) with a telephoto lens (Canon EF180f3.5L macro lens)
to keep the field of view nominally the same. The steel plate was
then subjected to the same loading increments and the DIC and foil
gage strain results were determined. The error in principal strain
between the DIC and foil strain gages is presented as a raw com-
parison and after applying a Poisson’s ratio based correction in
Fig. 11a and b, respectively. One can see that once the out-of-plane
movement has been minimized, the mean principal strain error
using the raw uncorrected DIC strain data was only 0.7 le and
4.5 le for vertical and horizontal strain, respectively. Further cor-
rection using the Poisson’s ratio based approach (assuming that a
small amount of relative movement between the camera and the
specimen is unavoidable) further reduced these values to +3.9 le
and +0.1 le for vertical and horizontal strain, respectively. This
implies that as long as effects such as out-of-plane motion are
εerror
Camera 1 600
Camera 2
Foil gage 400
200
0 ε h)c εh εv
εv)c
) )
-200
-400
(a) -600 (b)
200 -500 0 500 1000
6
Normal strain, ε (x10 )
 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726 725

200
600
ε εv
h
400 - εh
150
ε v =0.283
200

100 0 εh εv

-200
50 Camera 1 -400
Camera 2
(a) Foil gage -600 (b)
0
-500 0 500 1000 -500 0 500 1000
6
Principal strain, ε (x10 )
6 Normal strain, ε (x10 )

Fig. 9. (a) Corrected load–deformation response of steel plate observed using DIC using Poisson’s ratio = 0.283, and (b) corrected Mohr’s circle of strain for load 180 kN.

20 20
εv
εv
10 10

0 0

εh
-10 -10
εh
Camera 1
-20 (a) Camera 2 -20
(b)
0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200
Load (kN) Load (kN)

Fig. 10. Residual error in principal strain data after correction using (a) a priori knowledge of the Poisson’s ratio of the material and (b) two camera out of plane motion
approach.

20 (a) 20 (b)

10 10

εv
0 0

-10 εh -10

-20 Camera 1 -20

0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200

Load (kN) Load (kN)

Fig. 11. (a) Initial uncorrected error in DIC results of Test 2 and (b) residual error in principal strain data after Poisson’s ratio correction applied.

accounted for, the DIC technique can produce similar results to a
conventional strain gauge.
5. Future research
The initial results using the DIC method suggest that it can pro-
vide similar results to strain gages. Further, as image processing
technologies and camera hardware improves, the accuracy possi-
ble with these techniques will continue to improve. Based on the
testing performed, it appears as if this technology has matured to
a point where the level of strain accuracy would allow the system
to be used for field monitoring. However, further research is re-
quired to examine the impact of a number of variables including:
texture and variable strain fields. The importance of texture has
been discussed earlier. Variable strain fields are also quite common
in civil engineering applications (e.g. beams in bending and dis-
turbed regions) and so the method will have to be further devel-
oped to measure these strains, especially for field monitoring
applications. The effect of temperature and lighting changes on this
technique as well as well dynamic strain measurements are all
ongoing topics of research.
6. Conclusions
The goal of this paper was to investigate whether the proposed
DIC-based approach could be used to measure strain with the same
resolution as conventional strain gages. A steel plate in tension test
was used to validate the method. It was found that even small out-
of-plane movements of the specimen can result in significant strain
measurement errors. The effect of out-of-plane movement was
726 N.A. Hoult et al. / Engineering Structures 46 (2013) 718–726

examined and the strain error was found to be a function of the
distance between the plate and the camera as well as the out-of-
plane movement. Five potential methods for compensating for
these strain errors were discussed. Three of these methods
(increasing the effective distance between the camera and the
specimen, an adjustment based on the Poisson’s ratio of the mate-
rial, and a correction based on using cameras to view both sides of
the loaded specimen) were used to improve the accuracy of the
measurements from the plate test. It was found that the DIC
method can be used to provide strain resolutions that are adequate
for field monitoring, provided that out-of-plane movement is
accounted for.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the Natural Science and Engi-
neering Research Council of Canada for their financial support of
[10] Hung PC, Voloshin AS. In-plane strain measurement by digital image
this research.
[11] Luo G, Chutatape O, Fang H. Experimental study on nonuniformity of line jitter
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