A stochastic shape and orientation model for fibres with an application to carbon nanotubes

Methods are introduced for analysing the shape and orientation of planar\nfibres from greyscale images of fibrous systems. The sequence of image\nprocessing techniques needed for segmentation of fibres is described.\nThe identified fibres were interpreted as deformed line segments for\nwhich two shape and two orientation parameters are estimated by the\nmaximum likelihood method. The methods introduced are shown to perform\nquite well for simulated systems of deformed line segments with known\nproperties. They were applied to TEM images of carbon nanotubes embedded\nin polycarbonate.