Enhancing digital core image resolution using optimal upscaling algorithm: with application to paired SEM images

The porous media community extensively utilizes digital rock images for core analysis. High-resolution digital rock images that possess sufficient quality are essential but often challenging to acquire. Super-resolution (SR) approaches enhance the resolution of digital rock images and provide improved visualization of fine features and structures, aiding in the analysis and interpretation of rock properties, such as pore connectivity and mineral distribution. However, there is a current shortage of real paired microscopic images for super-resolution training. In this study, we used two types of Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) to obtain the images of shale samples in five regions, with 1X, 2X, 4X, 8X and 16X magnifications. We used these real scanned paired images as a reference to select the optimal method of image generation and validated it using Enhanced Deep Super Resolution (EDSR) and Very Deep Super Resolution (VDSR) methods. Our experiments show that the bilinear algorithm is more suitable than the commonly used bicubic method, for establishing low-resolution datasets in the SR approaches, which is partially attributed to the mechanism of Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM).