Dynamic phase-differencing profilometry with number-theoretical phase unwrapping and interleaved projection.

High-speed 3D measurement is receiving increasing attention. However, simultaneously achieving high computational efficiency, algorithmic robustness, and reconstructing ratio is challenging. Therefore, a dynamic phase-differencing profilometry (DPDP) is proposed. By capturing the minimum three phase-shifting sinusoidal deformed patterns and establishing a brand-new model, the phase difference between the object on the reference plane and the reference plane is directly resolved to effectively improve computational efficiency. Although it is wrapped, by using only two auxiliary complementary gratings with a purposely designed lower frequency, a DPDP-based number-theoretical temporal phase unwrapping (NT-TPU) algorithm is also proposed to unwrap the wrapped phase difference rather than the phase itself with high robustness. Furthermore, compared to existing PSP-based NT-TPU, the proposed NT-TPU can normally work under more relaxed restrictions. In order to accomplish a high reconstructing ratio, a pentabasic interleaved projection (PIP) strategy based on time division multiplexing is proposed. It can improve the reconstructing ratio from one reconstruction per every five patterns to an equivalent of one reconstruction per every 1.67 patterns. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves high computational efficiency, high algorithmic robustness, and high reconstructing ratio simultaneously and has prospective application in high-speed 3D measurement.

Enhanced Fourier-Hilbert-transform suppression for saturation-induced phase error in phase-shifting profilometry.

Intensity saturation tends to induce severe errors in high dynamic range three-dimensional measurements using structured-light techniques. This paper presents an enhanced Fourier-Hilbert-transform (EFHT) method to suppress the saturation-induced phase error in phase-shifting profilometry, by considering three types of residual errors: nonuniform-reflectivity error, phase-shift error, and fringe-edge error. Background normalization is first applied to the saturated fringe patterns to suppress the effect of the nonuniform reflectivity. A self-correction method is proposed to correct the large phase-shift error in the compensated phase. The self-corrected phase error is detected to assist in locating the fringe-edge area, within which the true phase is computed based on the sub-period phase error model. Experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in suppressing the saturation-induced phase error and other three types of residual errors with fewer images.

Absolute phase retrieval based on fringe amplitude encoding without any additional auxiliary pattern.

An absolute phase retrieval method based on fringe amplitude encoding is proposed. Different from the conventional intensity coding methods which are based on time division multiplexing with multiple additional auxiliary patterns, the proposed fringe order encoding strategy is codeword overlapping interaction based on space division multiplexing. It just directly encodes different fringe amplitudes for different periods in corresponding sinusoidal phase-shifting patterns to generate space division multiplexing composite sinusoidal phase-shifting patterns and quantifies the fringe amplitudes into four levels as encoding strategy, so it can retrieve absolute phase without any additional auxiliary patterns. To improve the anti-interference capability of the proposed method, a codeword extraction method based on image morphological processing is proposed to segment the grayscale. Consequently, both the phase-shifting sinusoidal deformed patterns and the single frame space division multiplexing four gray-level codewords for fringe order recognition can be extracted respectively from the captured composite deformed patterns. Then, a half-period single-connected domain correction method is also proposed to correct the codewords. Moreover, in order to suppress the effect of jump errors, the phase zero points are constructed to segment the positive and negative ranges of the phase, making the phase unwrapping process segmented. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectivity of the proposed method.

Ultra-fast 3D imaging by a big codewords space division multiplexing binary coding.

Patternless binary coding strategies have been a challenge for ultra-fast 3D imaging with structured light. This Letter proposes a big codewords space division multiplexing binary coding method. From the third to the multiple order, a special spatial binary coding instead of the Gray code is created for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, to achieve an ultra-wide unambiguous range with only one auxiliary pattern. Advantageously, a connection domain segmentation technique with anomaly detection is proposed to achieve decoding of the fringe order, which cleverly avoids the misalignment problem. Additionally, a center of gravity method is applied to compensate for the codewords of the residual connected domain. The robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method for complex, isolated, and non-uniform reflectivity objects, as well as the ultra-fast 3D imaging of dynamic measurements, are experimentally verified.

Dynamic computer-generated moiré profilometry based on high-density binary coding.

A dynamic computer-generated moiré profilometry based on high-density binary coding is proposed. For making full use of the maximum refresh rate and the maximum resolution of the digital light projector (DLP), the binary coded fringe is used to replace the conventional 256-gray-scale sinusoidal fringe, which can increase the refresh rate from the traditional 120 Hz to more than 1 kHz and meet the needs of dynamic measurement from the source. To realize the minimum equivalent wavelength and obtain the purest calculated moiré fringe, a minimum four-pixel period high-density binary fringe that satisfies the sampling theorem is designed for the DLP. The measuring accuracy of computer-generated moiré profilometry is effectively improved due to its minimum equivalent wavelength. The experimental results show the feasibility and practicability of the proposed method. It not only possesses higher measuring accuracy, but also possesses a proper potential application in dynamic three-dimensional measurement.

High-efficiency and robust binary fringe optimization for superfast 3D shape measurement.

By utilizing 1-bit binary fringe patterns instead of conventional 8-bit sinusoidal patterns, binary defocusing techniques have been successfully applied for high-speed 3D shape measurement. However, simultaneously achieving high accuracy and high speed remains challenging. To overcome this limitation, we propose a high-efficiency and robust binary fringe optimization method for superfast 3D shape measurement, which consists of 1D optimization and 2D modulation. Specifically, for 1D optimization, the three-level OPWM technique is introduced for high-order harmonics elimination, and an optimization framework is presented for generating the 'best' three-level OPWM pattern especially for large fringe periods. For 2D modulation, a single-pattern three-level OPWM strategy is proposed by utilizing all the dimensions for intensity modulation to decrease the required projection patterns. Thus, the proposed method essentially belongs to the 2D modulation technique, yet iterative optimization is carried out along one dimension, which drastically improves the computational efficiency while ensuring high accuracy. With only one set of optimized patterns, both simulations and experiments demonstrate that high-quality phase maps can be consistently generated for a wide range of fringe periods (e.g., from 18 to 1140 pixels) and different amounts of defocusing, and it can achieve superfast and high-accuracy 3D shape measurement.

Strengthening and Toughening of Protein-Based Thermosets via Intermolecular Self-Assembly.

As proteins are abundant polymers in biomass sources such as agricultural feedstocks and byproducts, leveraging them to develop alternatives to synthetic polymers is of great interest. However, the mechanical performance of protein materials is not suitable for most target applications. Constructing copolymers with proteins as hard domains and rubbery polymers as soft domains has been shown to be a promising strategy for improving mechanical properties. Herein, it is demonstrated that toughening and strengthening of protein copolymers can be advanced further by thermal treatment, leading to mechanical enhancements that generalize across a variety of different protein feedstocks, including whey, serum, soy, and pea proteins. The thermal treatment induces a rearrangement of protein structure, leading to the formation of intermolecular ß-sheets. The ordered intermolecular structures in the hard domains of thermosets greatly improve their mechanical properties, providing simultaneous increases in strength, toughness, and modulus, with little sacrifice in fracture strain. Analogous to crystalline structures, the formation of intermolecular ß-sheet structures also leads to reduced hygroscopicity. This is a valuable contribution, as practical applications of natural polymer-based plastics are frequently hindered by the materials' humidity sensitivity. Therefore, this work demonstrates a simple yet versatile strategy to improve the materials' performance from a wide range of protein feedstocks, as well as signifies the implications of protein structural assembly in materials design.

Nonlinear error full-field compensation method for phase measuring profilometry.

Phase measuring profilometry (PMP) has the highest measuring accuracy among structured light projection-based three-dimensional (3D) sensing methods. Due to their low-cost and high-resolution features, commercial projectors are extensively used in PMP, but they are all designed with a gamma effect purpose that considers the characteristics of human vision. Affected by the gamma effect, a set of phase-shifting sinusoidal deformed patterns captured in PMP may contain high-order harmonics which lead to nonlinear phase errors. Then, a novel nonlinear error full-field compensation method is proposed. First, the unwrapped phases modulated by the reference plane are measured several times, and their average phase is taken as the measured phase modulated by the reference plane to eliminate random errors as much as possible. Second, an expected phase plane is fitted from this average phase with the least-squares method. Third, the nonlinear phase error can be detected by subtracting the fitted expected phase from this average phase. Finally, the full-field look-up table (LUT) can be established between the nonlinear phase error and the measured phase. When an object is measured, the unwrapped phase modulated by the object is taken as the measured phase of the LUT, so the corresponding nonlinear phase error can be directly searched in the LUT. In this way, the full-field nonlinear phase error can be efficiently compensated. Experimental results show the feasibility and validity of the proposed method. The mean absolute error (MAE) can be improved from 0.48 mm to 0.06 mm, and the root mean square error (RMSE) can be improved from 0.55 mm to 0.07 mm.

Amyloid fibril-directed synthesis of silica core-shell nanofilaments, gels, and aerogels.

Amyloid fibrils have evolved from purely pathological materials implicated in neurodegenerative diseases to efficient templates for last-generation functional materials and nanotechnologies. Due to their high intrinsic stiffness and extreme aspect ratio, amyloid fibril hydrogels can serve as ideal building blocks for material design and synthesis. Yet, in these gels, stiffness is generally not paired by toughness, and their fragile nature hinders significantly their widespread application. Here we introduce an amyloid-assisted biosilicification process, which leads to the formation of silicified nanofibrils (fibril-silica core-shell nanofilaments) with stiffness up to and beyond ∼20 GPa, approaching the Young's moduli of many metal alloys and inorganic materials. The silica shell endows the silicified fibrils with large bending rigidity, reflected in hydrogels with elasticity three orders of magnitude beyond conventional amyloid fibril hydrogels. A constitutive theoretical model is proposed that, despite its simplicity, quantitatively interprets the nonmonotonic dependence of the gel elasticity upon the filaments bundling promoted by shear stresses. The application of these hybrid silica-amyloid hydrogels is demonstrated on the fabrication of mechanically stable aerogels generated via sequential solvent exchange, supercritical [Formula: see text] removal, and calcination of the amyloid core, leading to aerogels of specific surface area as high as 993 [Formula: see text]/g, among the highest values ever reported for aerogels. We finally show that the scope of amyloid hydrogels can be expanded considerably by generating double networks of amyloid and hydrophilic polymers, which combine excellent stiffness and toughness beyond those of each of the constitutive individual networks.

Intergovernmental competition, industrial spatial distribution, and air quality in China.

As clean air is a public good, local governments play an irreplaceable role in environmental protection. This study examines how intergovernmental competition affects air quality in China. The results reveal that intergovernmental tax competition increases regional sulfur dioxide and haze emissions and worsens regional air quality, while competition in infrastructure investment does not have such effects. Furthermore, tax competition will affect air quality through industrial spatial distribution. Intergovernmental competition attracts low-technical content capital flowing into where it is more aggressive, triggering a "race to the bottom" effect on industrial structure and attracting similar industries through an agglomeration economy. On this basis, this study uses the Spatial Durbin model to test the spatial impact of intergovernmental competition on air quality. The effects are manifested in two forms: pollution spillover and pollution transfer. Pollution spillover has a major effect on the air quality of neighboring regions at close geographical distances, while pollution transfer is mainly responsible for the air quality of regions with similar levels of economic development. The relocation of capital and industries between regions due to intergovernmental competition causes the spillover and transfer effects on air quality. In addition, this study analyzes the regulatory effect of fiscal decentralization and environmental regulation on the impact of intergovernmental competition on air quality.

Different Folding States from the Same Protein Sequence Determine Reversible vs Irreversible Amyloid Fate.

The propensity to self-assemble into amyloid fibrils with a shared cross-ß architecture is a generic feature of proteins. Amyloid-related diseases affect millions of people worldwide, yet they are incurable and cannot be effectively prevented, largely due to the irreversible assembly and extraordinary stability of amyloid fibrils. Recent studies suggest that labile amyloids may be possible in certain proteins containing low-complexity domains often involved in the formation of subcellular membraneless organelles. Although the fundamental understanding of this reversible amyloid folding process is completely missing, the current view is that a given protein sequence will result in either irreversible, as in most of the cases, or reversible amyloid fibrils, as in few exceptions. Here we show that two common globular proteins, human lysozyme and its homologue from hen egg white, can self-assemble into both reversible and irreversible amyloid fibrils depending on the folding path followed by the protein. In both folding states, the amyloid nature of the fibrils is demonstrated at the molecular level by its cross-ß structure, yet with substantial differences on the mesoscopic polymorphism and the labile nature of the amyloid state. Structural analysis shows that reversible and irreversible amyloid fibrils possess the same full-length protein sequence but different fibril core structures and ß-sheet arrangements. These results illuminate a mechanistic link between the reversible and irreversible nature of amyloids and highlight the central role of protein folding states in regulating the lability and reversibility of amyloids.

Spatial-temporal phase unwrapping algorithm for fringe projection profilometry.

In this paper, a generalized spatial-temporal phase unwrapping algorithm (STPUA) is proposed for extracting the absolute phase of the isolated objects with intricate surfaces. This proposed algorithm can eliminate thoroughly the order jumps of various temporal phase unwrapping algorithms (TPUAs), while inheriting the high measuring accuracy of quality-guided phase unwrapping algorithms (QGPUAs). Differing from the traditional phase unwrapping algorithms, wrapped phase is first divided into several regional wrapped phases, which can be extracted successively according to its areas and unwrapped individually by QGPUAs. Meanwhile, a series of reliable points from the fringe order map obtained from the code deformed patterns are selected to map the corresponding regional unwrapped phases into an absolute phase. The radii of selecting reliable points can provide the high measuring robustness compared with the classical point-to-point TPUAs for the complex surfaces and the motion blur, while keeping the same number of patterns. Therefore, the proposed STPUA combining SPUAs and TPUAs also can be employed in real-time three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction. Theoretical analysis and experimental results are performed to verify the effectiveness and capability of the proposed algorithm.

Ultrafast spatial phase unwrapping algorithm with accurately correcting transient phase error.

In fringe projection profilometry, the wrapped phase is easily polluted by many factors such as noise, shadow, and so on. In this Letter, we propose an ultrafast bi-staggered spatial phase unwrapping (BSPU) method. By constructing another staggered phase, the fringe order jump (FOJ) and local transient phase error (LTPE) can be accurately and quickly located at the same time owing to a simple difference operation. For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a pioneering threshold separation model is established to precisely distinguish FOJ and LTPE. Based on the continuity assumption, LTPE is effectively corrected by introducing the concept of "non-integer fringe order." The range of measurable discontinuity height is improved owing to the distinction between real phase jump and random error in the spatial phase unwrapping. In addition, it is thousands of times faster than the traditional path-dependent algorithm and even has higher measurement accuracy. Experimental results show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method in various complex measurement environments.

Limited Bacterial Removal in Full-Scale Stormwater Biofilters as Evidenced by Community Sequencing Analysis.

In urban areas, untreated stormwater runoff can pollute downstream surface waters. To intercept and treat runoff, low-impact or "green infrastructure" approaches such as using biofilters are adopted. Yet, actual biofilter pollutant removal is poorly understood; removal is often studied in laboratory columns, with variable removal of viable and culturable microbial cell numbers including pathogens. Here, to assess bacterial pollutant removal in full-scale planted biofilters, stormwater was applied, unspiked or spiked with untreated sewage, in simulated storm events under transient flow conditions, during which biofilter influents versus effluents were compared. Based on microbial biomass, sequences of bacterial community genes encoding 16S rRNA, and gene copies of the human fecal marker HF183 and of the Enterococcus spp. marker Entero1A, removal of bacterial pollutants in biofilters was limited. Dominant bacterial taxa were similar for influent versus effluent aqueous samples within each inflow treatment of either spiked or unspiked stormwater. Bacterial pollutants in soil were gradually washed out, albeit incompletely, during simulated storm flushing events. In post-storm biofilter soil cores, retained influent bacteria were concentrated in the top layers (0-10 cm), indicating that the removal of bacterial pollutants was spatially limited to surface soils. To the extent that plant-associated processes are responsible for this spatial pattern, treatment performance might be enhanced by biofilter designs that maximize influent contact with the rhizosphere.

High-precision 3D shape measurement of rigid moving objects based on the Hilbert transform.

Phase-shifting profilometry (PSP) is a three-dimensional (3D) measurement method of point-to-point calculation. The consistency of object position is the prerequisite to ensure the successful application of PSP in moving objects. The position information of an object can be well characterized by the modulation patterns, and hence a high-quality modulation pattern is the guarantee of pixel-matching accuracy. In this paper, a generic modulation pattern enhancement method for rigid moving objects based on the Hilbert transform is proposed. First, the Hilbert transform is employed to suppress the zero-frequency components of the fringe pattern, and a hybrid digital filter window is applied to filter out the positive fundamental frequency components for a higher signal-to-noise ratio. Then the grid-based motion statistics for fast, ultra-robust feature correspondence algorithm is used to match the high-quality modulation patterns between two adjacent frames, and the object positions in the three deformed patterns are made consistent by image clipping. Finally, the three-step PSP is used to reconstruct the 3D shape of the measured object. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can substantially improve the quality of the modulation pattern, achieve high-precision pixel matching, and ultimately reduce the motion-introduced phase error.

Improved computer-generated moiré profilometry with flat image calibration.

An improved computer-generated moiré profilometry (CGMP) with flat image calibration is proposed. In CGMP, the purification of the AC component plays a decisive role. While a composite grating modulated with both the sinusoidal grating and its background light substitutes for the sinusoidal grating itself, the sinusoidal deformed pattern and flat image can be demodulated from the captured pattern. It is found that the sinusoidal deformed pattern and flat image may deviate, which is caused by ambient light. So flat image calibration is conducted to obtain a purer AC component that can effectively suppress the influence of ambient light and ensure the measurement accuracy, even if spectrum aliasing exists. Experimental results show the feasibility and validity of the proposed method.

Amyloid Fibril-Templated High-Performance Conductive Aerogels with Sensing Properties.

Amyloid fibrils have garnered increasing attention as viable building blocks for functional material design and synthesis, especially those derived from food and agricultural wastes. Here, amyloid fibrils generated from ß-lactoglobulin, a by-product from cheese industries, have been successfully used as a template for the design of a new class of high-performance conductive aerogels with sensing properties. These mechanically stable aerogels with three-dimensional porous architecture have a large surface area (≈159 m2 g-1), low density (≈0.044 g cm-3), and high electrical conductivity (≈0.042 S cm-1). A pressure sensing device is developed from these aerogels based on their combined electrical conductivity and compressible properties. More interestingly, these aerogels can be employed to design novel enzyme sensors by exploiting the proteinaceous nature of amyloid fibrils. This study expands the scope of structured amyloid fibrils as scaffolds for in situ polymerization of conducting polymers, offering new opportunities to design materials with multiple functionalities.

High-accuracy 3D surface measurement using hybrid multi-frequency composite-pattern temporal phase unwrapping.

Multi-frequency temporal phase unwrapping (TPU) has been extensively used in phase-shifting profilometry (PSP) for the high-accuracy measurement of objects with surface discontinuities and isolated objects. However, a large number of fringe patterns are commonly required. To reduce the number of required patterns, a new hybrid multi-frequency composite-pattern TPU method was developed using fewer patterns than conventional TPU. The new method combines a unit-frequency ramp pattern with three low-frequency phase-shifted fringe patterns to form three composite patterns. These composite patterns are used together with three high-frequency phase-shifted fringe patterns to generate a high-accuracy phase map. The optimal high frequency to achieve high measurement accuracy and reliable phase unwrapping is determined by analyzing the effect of temporal intensity noise on phase error. Experimental results demonstrated that new grayscale hybrid and color hybrid multi-frequency composite-pattern TPU methods can achieve a high-accuracy measurement using only six and three images, respectively.

Fast 3D measurement based on improved optical flow for dynamic objects.

High resolution, real-time three-dimensional (3D) measurement plays an important role in many fields. In this paper, a multi-directional dynamic real-time phase measurement profilometry based on improved optical flow is proposed. In a five-step phase shifting dynamic measurement, pixel matching is needed to make the pixels one-to-one corresponding in five patterns. However, in the frequently-used pixel matching method at present, it is necessary to calculate the correlation and traverse the whole deformed pattern for the motion information of the measured object. The huge amount of computation caused by correlation computation takes up most of the time in the process of the entire 3D reconstruction, so it can not meet the requirement of real-time dynamic measurement. In order to solve the problem, the improved optical flow algorithm is introduced to replace correlation calculation in pixel matching. In one measurement, five captured patterns need to be dealt with, and the optical flow between each two adjacent frames is calculated. Then four two-dimensional vector matrices can be obtained. The vector matrices contain the complete motion information of the measured object. Experiments and simulations prove that this method can improve the efficiency of pixel matching by 42 times and 3D reconstruction by 32 times on the premise of ensuring the accuracy.

High-frequency color-encoded fringe-projection profilometry based on geometry constraint for large depth range.

In multi-view fringe projection profilometry (FPP), a limitation of geometry-constraint based approaches is the reduced measurement depth range often used to reduce the number of candidate points and increase the corresponding point selection reliability, when high-frequency fringe patterns are used. To extend the depth range, a new method of high-frequency fringe projection profilometry was developed by color encoding the projected fringe patterns to allow reliable candidate point selection even when six candidate points are in the measurement volume. The wrapped phase is directly retrieved using the intensity component of the hue-saturation-intensity (HSI) color space and complementary-hue is introduced to identify color codes for correct corresponding point selection. Mathematical analyses of the effect of color crosstalk on phase calculation and color code identification show that the phase calculation is independent of color crosstalk and that color crosstalk has little effect on color code identification. Experiments demonstrated that the new method can achieve high accuracy in 3D measurement over a large depth range and for isolated objects, using only two high-frequency color-encoded fringe patterns.