File Naming in Vic-3D

Vic-Snap automatically names the images with the correct naming conventions for Vic-3D.  So other than remembering not to use an underscore in the filename, there is no actions necessary for naming files correctly when using Vic-Snap.

 When using acquisition software other than Vic-Snap, however, the user must follow the naming convention needed for Vic-3D.  File names and file paths should not contain any underscores except for the _0 or _1 camera designation (which again, is automatically generated in Vic-Snap).  The _0 and _1 indicates to Vic-3D which camera the image corresponds to, so an underscore elsewhere in the file name or file path is incompatible with Vic-3D.

The file name for camera 0 and camera 1 must be identical except for the _0 or _1 indicator. 

Vic-Snap automatically names both the images with the same user-defined prefix, assigns the proper sequential numbering system, and designates each image with the  _0 and _1 suffix.  Only the prefix must be entered (so in the example below, only "test-image" was entered as the file name and Vic-Snap assigned the rest of the name). 

For example:

test-image-000_0.tif is the image for camera 0 and

test-image-000_1.tif is the image for camera 1

The next image pair will be test-image-001_0.tif and test-image-001_1.tif.

 

It is preferred that the camera indicator (_0 and _1) is at the end of the file name.  However, some software packages (Photron's PFV software, for example) don't allow for that.  So if the camera designation is the middle of the filename, it should be surrounded by underscores (_1_ and _0).  For example:

filename_0_00001.tif

filename_1_00001.tif

 

When files are loaded into Vic-2D and Vic-3D they will be sorted in alphanumerical order.  This means that if you have a lot of images, you should make sure that you have enough digits in the file numbering so that the images will be ordered correctly.  For example, if there are only three file number digits, then the images will be numbered 000-999 and then jump to 1000 and so on.  The problem here is that image 1000 will not be after 999, rather it'll be between 100 and 101.  In that case you should check to see that the assigned file number digits parameter is at least 4, so the first image will be 0000.  This can be set in File>Advanced Options>System Settings>File Number Digits.

 

Troubleshooting

Blank Images: When importing an image into Vic-3D, if the images come in blank or all white, then it's likely a naming issue.  Also if you see that images for both camera 0 and camera 1 are listed separately in the image tab, it is also most likely a naming issue.  In these cases, check there there are no underscores in both the file name and also even in the file path/folder name except for the _0 and _1 at the end, which must be present.

Missing Images: If it looks like not all of your images were imported into the software, check to see that you had enough digits for all of the images (so if you have over 9999 images, your first image should be 00000 and not 0000).  If you have the incorrect number of digits for the number of files that you have then it's likely that all of the images loaded into the software correctly and that they are just hard to find because it would be ordered incorrectly.  Also, with a large number of files it is best to load the images by group, rather than selecting all of them.  So go to File>Speckle Images By Group and select the speckle image group prefix.  It will import all images with that prefix.