Software Image J to study soil pore distribution

Abstract

In the soil science, a direct method that allows the study of soil pore distribution is the bi-dimensional (2D) digital image analysis. Such technique provides quantitative results of soil pore shape, number and size. The use of specific softwares for the treatment and processing of images allows a fast and efficient method to quantify the soil porous system. However, due to the high cost of commercial softwares, public ones can be an interesting alternative for soil structure analysis. The objective of this work was to evaluate the quality of data provided by the Image J software (public domain) used to characterize the voids of two soils, characterized as Geric Ferralsol and Rhodic Ferralsol, from the southeast region of Brazil. The pore distribution analysis technique from impregnated soil blocks was utilized for this purpose. The 2D image acquisition was carried out by using a CCD camera coupled to a conventional optical microscope. After acquisition and treatment of images, they were processed and analyzed by the software Noesis Visilog 5.4® (chosen as the reference program) and ImageJ. The parameters chosen to characterize the soil voids were: shape, number and pore size distribution. For both soils, the results obtained for the image total porosity (%), the total number of pores and the pore size distribution showed that the Image J is a suitable software to be applied in the characterization of the soil sample voids impregnated with resin.