A fast all-in-one method for automated post-processing of PIV data

Post-processing of PIV (particle image velocimetry) data typically contains three following stages: validation of the raw data, replacement of spurious and missing vectors, and some smoothing. A robust post-processing technique that carries out these steps simultaneously is proposed. The new all-in-one method (DCT-PLS), based on a penalized least squares approach (PLS), combines the use of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and the generalized cross-validation, thus allowing fast unsupervised smoothing of PIV data. The DCT-PLS was compared with conventional methods, including the normalized median test, for post-processing of simulated and experimental raw PIV velocity fields. The DCT-PLS was shown to be more efficient than the usual methods, especially in the presence of clustered outliers. It was also demonstrated that the DCT-PLS can easily deal with a large amount of missing data. Because the proposed algorithm works in any dimension, the DCT-PLS is also suitable for post-processing of volumetric three-component PIV data.