DIC Studio: An Automated, Low-Cost Smartphone-Based Digital Image Correlation Platform for Concrete Testing (Presented at ACI 123 Concrete Research Student Poster Session, Fall 2025, Baltimore, MD)

This poster was presented at the ACI 123 Concrete Research Student Poster Session during the ACI Concrete Convention – Fall 2025, held in Baltimore, Maryland, USA (October 27, 2025). DIC Studio is an automated, low-cost, smartphone-based digital image correlation (DIC) platform developed to make full-field, non-contact strain measurement accessible for concrete testing and fracture mechanics applications. The research addresses two key barriers to the widespread adoption of DIC in civil engineering: (1) the prohibitive cost of commercial software, and (2) the fragmented workflow of existing open-source solutions that require programming expertise. DIC Studio provides an integrated, end-to-end, no-code environment that unifies preprocessing, correlation, and post-processing within a single graphical user interface (GUI). The platform combines: Automated Preprocessing with speckle quality assessment and lens calibration; High-Performance Correlation using the IC-GN algorithm implemented in Ncorr C++; Parallelized Execution for faster computation; and A Fracture Mechanics Toolkit that computes Crack Mouth Opening Displacement (CMOD), Fracture Energy (Gf), and a novel Surface Damage Index (SDI). Validation with synthetic and experimental data demonstrated sub-pixel precision (RMSE < 0.005 pixels) and a 3.8× speed improvement over manual setups. A concrete Brazilian splitting test, captured using an iPhone 12 Pro, confirmed DIC Studio’s accuracy and reliability for full-field strain visualization and damage quantification. Key Contributions: A unified, open-source, platform-independent DIC workflow for material testing. A cost-effective, smartphone-validated acquisition system. Intelligent automation that minimizes user subjectivity. An integrated analysis suite for CMOD, Gf, and SDI extraction. Citation:Mirjafari, A., Asheghi Mehmandari, T., & Shokouhian, M. (2025). DIC Studio: An Automated, Low-Cost Smartphone-Based Digital Image Correlation Platform for Concrete Testing [Poster presentation]. ACI 123 Concrete Research Student Poster Session, ACI Concrete Convention – Fall 2025, Baltimore, MD, USA. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17466555 Acknowledgment:The authors would like to thank the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Morgan State University for their technical support and facilities.