Image analysis method for heterogeneity and porosity characterization of biomimetic hydrogels

Abstract

This work presents an image processing procedure for characterization of porosity and heterogeneity of hydrogels network mainly based on the analysis of cryogenic scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) images and can be extended to any other type of microscopy images of hydrogel porous network. An algorithm consisting of different filtering, morphological transformation, and thresholding steps to denoise the image whilst emphasizing the edges of the hydrogel walls for extracting either the pores or hydrogel walls features is explained. Finally, the information of hydrogel porosity and heterogeneity is presented in form of pore size distribution, spatial contours maps and kernel density dot plots. The obtained results reveal that a non-parametric kernel density plot effectively determines the spatial heterogeneity and porosity of the hydrogel.