Stereo-DIC uncertainty quantification based on simulated images

Stereo digital image correlation (stereo-DIC) is in wide-spread use for full-field shape, motion and deformation-measurements. However there are very few papers investigating the influence of the setup on the measurement uncertainty. This is mainly due to the highly non-linear measurement chain involving both optical and numerical aspects, making it difficult to investigate how error sources are propagated through the stereo-DIC chain. Indeed, it is impossible to separate all the error sources that are present during a physical measurement. This paper tries to investigate a selection of error sources that are present during experiments. This is based on a simulator introduced in a previous article (Balcaen et al., Exp Mech, 1–16 2017) and briefly reviewed here. Based on these simulations we suggest some ”best-practices” guidelines of optimal stereo-DIC setups.status: publishe