A New Automated Microtomy Concept for 3D Paper Structure Analysis

This paper describes a novel prototype for automated digitization of the three-dimensional paper structure. The concept is based on a light microscope which is rigidly attached to a microtome. The microscope can be moved in all three directions of space with high accuracy in order to be able to digitize large samples with high spatial resolution. All components are controlled by a PC interface which enables an automated digitization process. Sample sizes of one square-centimeter are digitized within hours. Two different pre-processing steps, stitching and aligning, are applied to the raw data set to get an accurate 3D representation of the paper structure. Initial experiments on analyzing the created data sets based on image analysis methods prove the applicability of the concept.