The robustness of the GLCM and XCT method for the quantification of 3D mineral texture

摘要

Mineral textural quantification methods have become critical in both geosdences and downstream mineral processing. The aim of this study is to investigate the robustness of using the X-ray computed tomography (XCT) and the grey level co-occurrence matrices (GLCM) method for the quantification of mineral texture in 3D. This can be achieved by testing the quality of the data that the GLCM outputs (statistics and heat maps) provides in response to changes in XCT conditions (e.g. artefacts, resolution, dual energy, calibration), as well as its response to different mineral texture types (e.g. anisotropic features). These findings will lead to a better understanding of how the GLCM captures the mineral texture information and assess the best conditions for the XCT analysis. It will further establish the versatility of the method to other mineral texture types and the factors affecting the underlying generic elements (e.g. grain size and mineralogy).