Video ODS November 30, 2023

VES-9000 Video ODS™

(November 30, 2023)

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Video ODS November 30, 2023

Table of Contents
VES-9000 Video ODS™............................................................................................................................... 1
VES-9000 Video ODS .................................................................................................................................. 4
Additional MEscope Commands ............................................................................................................................... 4
Additional Structure Window (STR) Commands ......................................................................................................4
MEscope Videos Menu ............................................................................................................................... 4
Videos | Video Wizard ...............................................................................................................................................4
Open Raw Video .......................................................................................................................................................5
Video Wizard Step 1 - Adjust & Crop ........................................................................................................ 5
Rotating the Video .....................................................................................................................................................5
Brightness & Contrast................................................................................................................................................5
Cropping The Video ..................................................................................................................................................6
Video Wizard Step 2 - Frames & Elapsed Time ........................................................................................ 6
Video Wizard Step 3 - Grid Points ............................................................................................................. 7
Number of Points .......................................................................................................................................................7
Extract TWFs ............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Video Wizard Step 4 - Scale Distance ....................................................................................................... 9
Zooming the Display .................................................................................................................................................9
Video Wizard Step 5 - Magnitude Histogram ............................................................................................ 9
Time-Based or Frequency-Based ODS Animation .................................................................................................. 12
Videos | Reprocess Video ........................................................................................................................................ 12
Structure (STR) Window Deflection Menu .............................................................................................. 12
Deflection | Remove Background Motion ............................................................................................................... 12
Deflection | Use First Video Frame ......................................................................................................................... 13

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VES-9000 Video ODS

If the VES-9000 Video ODS option is authorized by your MEscope license, the following commands are
enabled in the MEscope window, the Data Block (BLK) and Shape Table (SHP) windows. Check Help |
License Manager to verify authorization of this option.

Additional MEscope Commands

• Videos | Video Wizard
• Videos | Reprocess Video
Additional Structure Window (STR) Commands
• Deflection | Remove Background Motion
• Deflection | Use First Video Frame

MEscope Videos Menu

Videos | Video Wizard
Opens the Video Wizard window as shown below.

Opening Video Wizard window.

• The Video Wizard has five numbered steps, listed on the left side of the window, for processing a raw video

A raw video can be any recorded with a cell phone or high-speed digital video camera. Any video in the
following formats, .mov, .wmv, .avi, .mpg, .mpeg, and .mp4, can be processed.

• The Video Wizard extracts Time Waveforms (TWFs) for a video by comparing the movement of colored
pixels from each frame of the video to successive frame.).
• The extracted TWFs are stored in an MEscope Data Block (BLK) file
• The TWFs are then transformed to their equivalent Discrete Fourier Transforms (DFTs), and the DFTs are
stored on another MEscope Data Block (BLK) file

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Open Raw Video

• Press the Open Raw Video button on the upper left side of the Wizard window
A windows file dialog box will open, from which you can navigate to a video stored on your computer.
• Double-click on a video file to open it in the Wizard

Open File Dialog Showing Video Files

Video Wizard Step 1 - Adjust & Crop

After a raw video has been opened in the Wizard, it will proceed to step 1 – Adjust & Crop. Several functions
can be carried out in this steps.
Rotating the Video
The video may have been recorded with the camera rotated away from right-side-up position, as shown below.

Raw Video Rotated 270 Degrees from Vertical.

To rotate the video above so that the machine is right-side-up,
• Click on 270˚ to rotate the machine to the correct vertical position
Brightness & Contrast
If the video recording is too dark, its brightness & contrast can be improved by using the sliders in the Wizard
window

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• Slide the Brightness & Contrast controls horizontally to improve the brightness & contrast of the video, as
shown below

Video With Brightness & Contrast Improved

Cropping The Video
Many videos will capture a lot of the background area which is not of interest.

The background and surroundings of the test article should be removed by cropping as much of the video as
possible.

• Press the crop button on the lower right to initiate cropping

• Draw a cropping box around the area to be retained in the video
• Press the Reset Crop button on the lower right to return to the un-cropped video

Cropped Video with Most of the Background Removed

Video Wizard Step 2 - Frames & Elapsed Time

To move from Step 1 to Step 2,
• Either press the Next button in Step 1, or double click on 2 - Frames & Elapsed Time
In this step, video frames can be removed from the beginning and the end of the video, and the recording speed of
the video, (in frames per sec, or fps), must be entered. When the number of frames and the fps are determined,
the elapsed time of the video frames is calculated with e formula,
Elapsed Time = fps x (End Frame – Start Frame +1)

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• Press 2 - Frames & Elapsed Time

• Use the left end of horizontal slider to select a Start Frame
• Use the right end of horizontal slider to select an End Frame
• Enter the Capture Frame Rate into the frames per second box

fps = 1000, Frame Count = 2001 ➔ Elapsed time = 2.001 seconds

The fps of the video determines the frequency range of the DFTs calculated from the video.

Video Wizard Step 3 - Grid Points

To move from Step 2 to Step 3,
• Either press the Next button in Step 2, or double click on 3 - Grid Points
In this step, a rectangular grid of points will be setup and used for two purposes,
• A TWF for each grid point will be calculated from the motions of surrounding pixels in successive frames of
the video
• Each frame of the video will be attached to the grid surface during sweep animation through the TWFs of the
points
In MEscope, the displacements of the grid points during sweep or dwell animation is defined as a Video
ODS.

Number of Points
• Draw the horizontal slider to the right to increase the number of grid points
• Draw the horizontal slider to the left to decrease the number of grid points
The points in the rectangular grid are displayed at red dots, as shown below.

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Rectangular Grid Showing 2610 Points.

Extract TWFs
When this button in the lower right corner of the window is pressed, two TWFs will be extracted for each grid
point.
• One TWF for the horizontal displacement and one TWF for the vertical displacement of each grid point
will be extracted for frames of the video
▪ For example, if there are 2000 grid points, then 4000 TWFs will be extracted from the video
• Each sample of a TWF corresponds to the displacement of the pixels in a frame of the video

The Extract TWFs command can take several minutes to process a video. Processing time is strongly
dependent on the number of frames chosen in Step 3.

Step 3 When Extract TWFs Has Been Pressed

When the Extract TWFs command has completed, the next step, Step 4 will be selected.

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Video Wizard Step 4 - Scale Distance

This step is automatically chosen after the Extract TWFs command has been executed in Step 3.
In this step, the TWFs extracted in Step 3 are scaled to units of displacement so they accurately reflect the
displacements of the article under test captured by the video.

In this step, any two points in a frame of the video are selected and the distance between those two points is
entered in English or metric units
• Press the Set Distance button
• Click on the beginning endpoint of the distance and then on the ending point
A red line will be displayed between the two points
• Enter the distance between the two points in length units

Red Line Showing 36 Inches of Distance Between Two Points in the Video.

A distance line should be chosen as close as possible in the plane of the video, but it can be at any angle
between two points captured by the video.

Zooming the Display

You can zoom and pan the display to pick the two endpoints of the distance more accurately.
• To zoom the display in or out, place the mouse pointer on the video and spin the mouse wheel
• To pan the display, hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and drag the mouse pointer

Video Wizard Step 5 - Magnitude Histogram

To move from Step 4 to Step 5,
• Either press the Next button in Step 4, or double click on 5 - Magnitude Histogram
In this step, the magnitudes of the displacements of each grid point are counted and displayed in a histogram of
magnitudes, for smallest to largest.

100 magnitude bins are used for counting magnitudes.

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Magnitude Histogram Showing 100 Magnitude Bins

In this step, points with small magnitudes and points with very large magnitudes can be eliminated for further
analysis.
• To eliminate points with small magnitudes, drag the slider on the left end of the slider bar to the right
• To eliminate points with large magnitudes, drag the slider on the right end of the slider bar to the left
• A bin number can also be entering to the First Bin and Last Bin boxes below the slider bar
▪ When the First Bin is increased above 1, the grid points with low magnitudes are not displayed on the
grid and their TWFs are deleted
▪ When the Last Bin is decreased below 100, the grid points with high magnitudes are not displayed on
the grid and their TWFs are deleted

Points With Low Magnitudes Eliminated

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Points With High Magnitudes Eliminated

This the last step of the video processing Wizard. To move from the Wizard to Video ODS animation and further
analysis,
• Press the Finish button in Step 5
When the Finish button is pressed on Step 5 of the Wizard, time-based ODS sweep animation will begin from
the Line cursor position in the Data Block of TWFs.

Time-Based ODS Animation

When time-based sweep animation is begun in the Data Block of TWFs, the video frame that matches the time
sample of the ODS data will be attached to the point grid. This adds machine rotations captured by the video to
the ODS animation.

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Time-Based or Frequency-Based ODS Animation

• Sweep animation of the ODS is initiated from the Line cursor position in the TWFs by clicking on one of
the TWFs in the Data Block on the upper right of the MEscope window
• Dwell animation of the ODS at the Line cursor position in the DFTs is initiated by clicking on one of the
DFTs in the Data Block on the upper right of the MEscope window

Time-Based or Frequency-Based ODS Animation.

Videos | Reprocess Video

This command can be used while the Project file is still open, and the raw video is available for reprocessing.

• When this command is executed, the Video Wizard is re-opened

Structure (STR) Window Deflection Menu

When VES-9000 is authorized, new commands are added to the Deflection menu in the Structure (STR) widow.
Deflection | Remove Background Motion
When vibration is recorded in a video due to movement of the camera, the pixel motions recorded in each frame
of the video will have the same background motion added to them. This motion will also be added to each TWF
extracted from the video.
Background motion is removed from Points on the test article by averaging together the motions of selected
background Points. Then the average motion of the background Points is subtracting the average motion of the
background Points from the Point of interest on the test article.
When this command is executed, the grid Points are displayed and the floating Select Objects dialog box is
displayed at the bottom of the window, as shown below.

NOTE: The Select Objects box is used for selecting background Points. Selected Points are displayed in red
on the Point grid.

The functions of the commands in the Select Objects box are shown below.

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• After the background Points are selected, Press the close button (X) to close the Select Objects box to set
the motion of the selected Point to “zero” and subtract their average motion form the un-selected Points

Functions in the Select Objects Dialog Box.

All the TWFs and DFTs that were linked to the background Points are deleted from the TWFs & DFTs Data
Blocks.

Deflection | Use First Video Frame

This command only applies during sweep animation from the TWFs Data Block.

Each frame of the raw video corresponds to a sample of TWF data in the TWFs Data Block

• When this command is not checked, each frame of the raw video is attached to the point grid during sweep
animation
• When this command is checked, only the first frame of the raw video is attached to the point grid during
sweep animation

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