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Argos

Digital Image Correlation Software

GPU-Accelerated DIC with Discontinuity Enrichment

Argos2D embeds Heaviside-enriched shape functions directly into the correlation, capturing cracks, twins and slip bands.

Heaviside-DIC field
Standard DIC field
Standard DIC
Heaviside-DIC

Strain field magnitude computed on the multi-modal dataset of J.C. Stinville, J.M. Hestroffer, M.A. Charpagne, A.T. Polonsky, M.P. Echlin, C.J. Torbet, V. Valle, K.E. Nygren, M.P. Miller, O. Klaas, A. Loghin, I.J. Beyerlein, T.M. Pollock, Scientific Data 9 (2022) 460.

CUDA native Multi-GPU compatible Interactive visualization

Heaviside-Enriched Displacement Fields

Standard DIC assumes continuous displacement inside each subset, which smears out discontinuities across several pixels. Argos adds a Heaviside step function to the correlation model, allowing a sharp jump to be identified within each subset.

The subset shape function is augmented with a jump vector and a Heaviside function:

φ(x) = x + u rigid body + ∇u · (xx0) first gradient Conventional DIC + u' · H(xx0) jump × Heaviside Heaviside-DIC

Based on: F. Bourdin, J.C. Stinville, M.P. Echlin, P.G. Callahan, W.C. Lenthe, C.J. Torbet, D. Texier, F. Bridier, J. Cormier, P. Villechaise, T.M. Pollock, V. Valle, Measurements of plastic localization by heaviside-digital image correlation, Acta Materialia, Vol. 157, pp. 307–325, 2018. DOI

Interactive Visualization

A full GUI to set up correlations and explore the results.

Argos2D interface — displacement field with Heaviside enrichment

Dataset from A. Rouwane, D. Texier, J.-N. Périé, J.-E. Dufour, J.C. Stinville et al., Optics and Laser Technology, Vol. 177, 2024. Courtesy of Damien Texier.

Fracture & Discontinuity Analysis

Dedicated post-processing for cracks, twins and slip bands.

The fracture tab exposes the full enrichment output: crack opening displacement (intensity and direction), crack angle α, opening direction β, and a crystallographic decomposition into screw (longitudinal) and edge (transverse) components relative to the crack front.

Argos2D — Fracture tab showing crack opening fields

Dataset from A. Rouwane, D. Texier, J.-N. Périé, J.-E. Dufour, J.C. Stinville et al., Optics and Laser Technology, Vol. 177, 2024. Courtesy of Damien Texier.

Strain Post-Processing

Customizable derivative kernels and built-in criteria.

Compute the full strain tensor (εxx, εyy, εxy) from displacement fields using separable gradient operators.

  • Separable gradient kernels — Sobel, Scharr, centered finite differences, or custom
  • Custom expressions — built-in math parser for user-defined strain criteria
Argos2D — Strain tab with kernel selector and custom criterion editor

Dataset from A. Rouwane, D. Texier, J.-N. Périé, J.-E. Dufour, J.C. Stinville et al., Optics and Laser Technology, Vol. 177, 2024. Courtesy of Damien Texier.

Mosaic Stitching & Batch Mode

Large-area analysis from tiled acquisitions.

Assemble multi-tile acquisitions into a seamless mosaic before running DIC.

  • Automated grid layout — row/column organization with configurable overlap, handles missing tiles
  • Batch mode — process each tile pair independently without stitching, for high-throughput analysis
Argos2D — Mosaic stitching mode

Dataset from A. Rouwane, D. Texier, J.-N. Périé, J.-E. Dufour, J.C. Stinville et al., Optics and Laser Technology, Vol. 177, 2024. Courtesy of Damien Texier.

Under the Hood

Core engine specifications.

GPU Correlation CUDA-native correlation with multi-GPU support
Pixel Search Hierarchical coarse-to-fine + FFT-accelerated mode
Sub-pixel Optimization IC-GN (Inverse Compositional Gauss-Newton) with bilinear, bicubic, or B-spline cubic interpolation
Shape Functions Translation (2 DOF), affine (6 DOF), Heaviside-enriched (10 DOF), twinning mode (11 DOF)

Get Argos2D

To request a license or try Argos2D, contact us: contact@argos-correlation.com

System requirements

  • Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
  • NVIDIA GPU (minimum: Turing generation, e.g. GTX 16xx / RTX 20xx)

Coming Soon

Argos3D is currently in development.

About the Author

Samuel Wantz, PhD

Founder & R&D Software Developer — Sam'Strain

Specialized in Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) with expertise in experimental mechanics, image processing and X-ray Computed Tomography. PhD from Université de Poitiers, France, on metrological assessment and optimization of XR-CT and DVC protocols for mechanical testing.