Using 3D-Snake for Measuring the Length of Artificially Generated Electric Arcs

In this paper a new approach is proposed for the use of 3D-snakes in the evaluation of variations in the length of artificially generated electrical arcs. This active contour is geometrically represented by a B-spline and evolves in 3D space constrained by internal and external forces, it happens in an energy minimization procedure (“internal energy” and “external energy” is used in a sense related to visual images processing and not to physical energy related to the electrical arc behavior). This approach presents some important aspects in comparison with the ad hoc strategies found in the literature for recovering 3D geometry of electrical discharges. In addition, the proposal discussed in this paper is capable of tracking the evolution of the electrical discharge taking into account the time dependence between consecutive pairs of images. KeywordsElectric Arc; Computer Vision; Image Processing.