QUANTITATIVE POROSITY DETERMINATION OF THIN-SECTIONS USING DIGITIZED IMAGES

NIH Image, freeware for Macintosh computers, is used to obtain quantit ative porosity values from digitized images of thin sections. The digi tal images are modified to reduce contrast and give the pores, or feat ure of interest, a unique color. NIH Image is used to measure the numb er of pixels of each color in the pore space and the total number of p ixels in the image. This technique can be used for quantitative assess ment of any digital image.