How to measure and analyse the texture of food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and adhesives.
Tuesday, 13 May 2025
Never miss a testing moment: Video capture
Capturing texture analysis on video offers genuine benefits to manufacturers. When you are testing brittle products on your Texture Analyser, crucial visual elements can be easily missed by the human eye, due to the rapid speed of the test or to the complex breaking pattern of the brittle sample.
By synchronising video data with your Texture Analyser’s force-distance-time graphs you can replay specific moments in a test to help with your understanding of the sample breakdown. The ability to pause, replay and see the exact correlation between peaks and troughs of force with video frames is a brilliant teaching tool for research labs.
Typical examples
How it works
1. Mount the camera - Most tests capture video from above or beside the sample being tested. Other tests generate interesting results by filming from underneath the sample (if mounted on a glass platform).
Camera mounting options: above the sample, under the sample, to the side
2. Decide on lighting - Depending upon your sample size and testing environment you may choose additional lighting to optimise the video result. You can preview the focus and lighting on your PC before testing and take a picture of your pre-test setup to store within your project notes for future reference.
Lighting options: above the sample, under the sample, to the side
3. Record the video during your chosen test - Switch on the video capture data channel to automatically collect the video data at up to 49 frames per second within Exponent software.
4. Replay your data over and over - Each frame of the video is perfectly synchronised with the force-distance-time graph that sits alongside your video window so that wherever the cursor is on the graph the video will show the equivalent point within the video so you can identify graph features with video events. Pause and play over and over to get a full understanding of your sample breakdown features and events and how they present themselves as events on the graph.
5. Export your graph and video as a compound file to share with others - The beauty of video is the ability to share testing moments with your colleagues. Exponent software allows you to create a compound video of the cursor moving over the graph whilst the video plays so that others can see what happened during testing. This is the ultimate way to understand how your samples respond to stress/deformation. It can be used as part of presentations and help in training and education. The video file is saved as a .wmv file.
There is a Texture Analysis test for virtually any physical property. Contact Stable Micro Systems today to learn more about our full range of solutions.
TheTA.XTplusC Texture Analyser is part of a family of texture analysis instruments and equipment from Stable Micro Systems. An extensive portfolio of specialist attachments is available to measure and analyse the textural properties of a huge range of food products. Our technical experts can also custom design instrument fixtures according to individual specifications.
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