Digital image correlation has become a standard tool for those researching and producing a wide range of consumer products. Today, Correlated Solutions’ VIC-3D systems, developed by the scientists and engineers that pioneered DIC technology, are being widely used to understand the dynamic and static response of a variety of materials used in products we use every day. This testing significantly reduces instrumentation time and costs. Examples in which systems from Correlated Solutions continue to be used in consumer product applications are shown below.

Recently, Correlated Solutions conducted an in-house test using digital image correlation to evaluate the strain and deformation on the sole of a running shoe during three different styles of foot strikes: heel, midfoot, and toe. In this video, we demonstrate several useful hardware and software developments here at Correlated Solutions. First, newer high-speed cameras like the Phantom VEO 640s used in this test, offer high resolution options, which are necessary to obtain full-field strain and deformation contour plots in fields-of-view with high aspect ratios – like the thin, midsole region of running shoes. The two Phantom VEO 640 cameras each have a resolution of 2560 x 1600 with a frame rate of 1,400 frames per second. On the software side, updates to the iris visualization workspace in the VIC-3D 10 digital image correlation system allow the easy juxtaposition of data from several distinct tests in a single project, exported as 4K video. To accommodate the complexity of the shape, the shoes were speckled by hand using a permanent marker. The cameras were set up with Nikon 25 mm lenses as close to the floor as possible and calibrated using a 14mm calibration target designed and produced by Correlated Solutions. Over three distinct events, nearly 2000 image pairs were captured in total.