Connected components
Connected components are computed relative chosen starting faces/planes at the edges of the volume. The starting faces can be visualized in 3D in Mist (see video and image slides below). Each component is connected to the chosen planes. The components are disconnected from each other, but all pore voxels within a component are connected.
In Mist
Each connected component is assigned a unique number from 2 to max (max = number of components + 1). The components are sorted by their volume: the smallest component has value 2 and the largest has value max. Pore voxels that are not connected have value 0 and solid matrix voxels have value 1.
The implementation of connected components in Mist is described in detail in the reference manual (see also Scientific resources).
Connection probability, one of the summary statistics, is the probability that two randomly chosen connected pore voxels belong to the same component.
How to compute connected components in Mist
The video below shows how to compute connected components for a demo structure with 5 disconnected components. The “Mapping Data”-feature in Mist is used to display each separate component and any disconnected pores. The image slideshow below the video shows stills with comments explaining the results in the video.
