The stereological unfolding problem for systems of homothetic particles

Abstract

The stereological unfolding problem for spatial systems of particles is discussed. It is assumed that all particles have the same shape but different size. In contrast to the usual method of estimating the size distribution of the particles from the sizes of section profiles a new technique is proposed, exploiting the size as well as the shape of the observed profiles. The profile shapes carry additional information about the particle sizes. This leads to improved stereological estimation of size distribution. As a worked example a system of cubic particles with random edge length is studied.