This article is more for student rather than materials engineers with several years of career behind. Have you ever thought about using PC tools, which can help you with solving problems needed for schoolwork ? Imagine this objective: You want to examine metallographic section of ordinary cementite steel. Your teacher gives you photo with task to measure the number of cementite particles. As we all know the mechanical properties of such steel is dependent upon quantity of these particles. You can do it by hand or use some of available software tools. And I can think of milion tasks like this one.

 

For example ordinary GIMP is able to help you to measure particle diametres, areas and angles, but you have to calibrate results to get them in the right units. Another (very good) tool is ImageJ. It is image analysis and processing tool writen in Java with wide range of applications. It can measure distances, angles and areas, calculate area statistics, point coordinates and so on. You can write your own scripts and run them. Also you are able to process photos - smooth, sharpen, find edges an much more...

 

I promise to write more in a little serial about this unique tool.