LaVision announces the implementation of PIV uncertainty quantification (UQ) for instantaneous 2D- and Stereo-PIV velocity fields. This powerful tool allows end users the ability to estimate the errors in their PIV data using the Correlated Statistics (CS) method (Wieneke, 2014). The need to put an error bar on a PIV vector has long been missing in the PIV community. In recent years, several methods that address this need have emerged in the open literature. LaVision has participated in research collaborations with the various authors of these methods to benchmark the CS method. The results, presented at 2014 Lisbon Conference (Neal et al., 2014 and Sciacchitano et al., 2014) show that the CS method is an effective technique for calculating PIV UQ.

LaVision’s DaVis software, now with the implemented UQ tool, enables end users to calculate an uncertainty value for each processed vector in their PIV data (i.e. an uncertainty field). The uncertainty field can be calculated for older data as well, provided the original images are used. Researchers now have the ability to estimate the accuracy of their data, which is critically important for reporting results to the scientific community.