Universal method using a pre-deformed reference subset to eliminate the interpolation bias in digital image correlation

The high measurement accuracy of the digital image correlation (DIC) method is derived from the sub-pixel registration algorithm, which interpolates the intensities at the sub-pixel position in the image. The displacement error caused by the interpolation is a systematic bias in the DIC method, known as the sinusoidal bias in the sub-pixel translation experiment. Although the interpolation bias has been well researched, there is a lack of a universal method to eliminate interpolation bias. In this work, we propose a universal method to eliminate the interpolation bias using a pre-deformed reference subset; pixel points in the pre-deformed subset are deviated from the integer-pixel location. The purpose of the adjustment is to set the deformed pixel points at a specific position, so that the interpolation bias of all deformed pixel points cancels each other out, close to zero. The adjustment of the pre-deformed reference subset is related with the subset size and subset deformation. Numerical experiments including DIC challenge data and a real uniaxial tensile test were conducted to verify the effectiveness and universality of the proposed method, contributing to improved measurement accuracy. Considering the effect of pixel point location on the interpolation bias, this work proposes a universal method to eliminate the interpolation bias and provides a perspective to study DIC errors.