Digital reconstruction and analysis
Reconstruction of 2D radiographs was performed using ZEISS XM
Reconstructor software to produce TXM files. These 3D files were loaded
into Thermo Fisher (MA, USA) Avizo® Fire 2022 for processing and
analysis . Files were cropped to the appropriate size before applying
‘non-local means’ and ‘unsharp masking’ commands to reduce and remove
noise from each volume. The ‘Interactive Thresholding’ command was used
to segment material and void phases for analysis before applying further
analysis commands, for example ‘Volume Fraction’ to measure porosity .
‘Chamfer Distance Map’ and ‘Separate Objects’ were used to produce a
Pore Network Map that enabled identification of pore sizes and
connectivity . The XLAB plugin was used for ‘Permeability Simulation
Experiment’ to visualize and characterize flow through each digital
geometry . 3D TIFF files were exported to the MATLAB plugin TauFactor to
evaluate tortuosity factor .