Minkowski tensors of anisotropic spatial structure

This paper describes the theoretical foundation of and explicit algorithms for a novel approach to morphology and anisotropy analysis of complex spatial structure using tensor-valued Minkowski functionals, the socalled Minkowski tensors. Minkowski tensors are generalizations of the wellknown scalar Minkowski functionals and are explicitly sensitive to anisotropic aspects of morphology, relevant for example for elastic moduli or permeability of microstructured materials. Here we derive explicit linear-time algorithms to compute these tensorial measures for three-dimensional shapes. These apply to representations of any object that can be represented by a triangulation of its bounding surface; their application is illustrated for the polyhedral Voronoi cellular complexes of jammed sphere configurations and for triangulations of a biopolymer fibre network obtained by confocal microscopy. The paper further bridges the substantial notational and conceptual gap between the different but equivalent approaches to scalar or tensorial Minkowski functionals in mathematics and in physics, hence making the mathematical measure theoretic formalism more readily accessible for future application in the physical sciences. S Online supplementary data available from stacks.iop.org/NJP/15/083028/ mmedia 3 Authors to whom any correspondence should be addressed. Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. New Journal of Physics 15 (2013) 083028 1367-2630/13/083028+38$33.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft