Determination of the average pore-size and porosity in collagen by image processing of SEM micrographs

In this work we describe a method for measuring the pore size distribution of collagen sponge, which involves image processing of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) micrographs. The processing program measures the total area of the pores and calculate its proportion to the total scanned area. A threshold value was set to divide the image into dark areas assumed as pores and bright areas. The porosity of the layer is defined by the ratio between the total volume of the pores to the volume of the entire layer. We compared the porosity obtained by the classical method with the one obtained by SEM image.