Imaging and analysis of complex and disordered 3D structures with application to mozzarella cheese

Structure is often intuitively associated with repetitive and consistent patterns known from construction or materials science. However, many structures, such as those found in soft, biological matter, tend to be far more complex, chaotic, and disordered. Despite this, they continue to define many of the most crucial properties, including strength, chemical and fluid interactions, as well as visual and sensory characteristics.
This thesis addresses the image-based analysis of such complex and disordered structures using volumetric representations obtained through X-ray computed tomography. Within this context, both imaging and analysis present unique challenges, requiring careful experimental design and tailored analysis approaches.
We demonstrate an imaging strategy that helps mitigate thermal instability in soft biological samples while maximizing contrast between low-atomic-number components. At the same time, we highlight the advantages of synchrotron X-ray sources for soft matter imaging and introduce MozzaVID, the largest publicly available 3D food microstructure dataset to date. On the methodological side, we introduce a novel structure tensor scale-space algorithm, along with refined definitions of sphericity and roundness. Both contributions are designed to enable robust and efficient quantification of complex 3D microstructures.
The methodological and imaging developments from this thesis are applied to a specific case of mozzarella cheese microstructure. During production, mozzarella undergoes stretching, which creates an anisotropic matrix of proteins and fats. The properties of that matrix influence many functional and sensory aspects of mozzarella that are especially crucial to its performance as a pizza topping. With comprehensive volumetric data and robust analysis, we provide data-driven insights into how production parameters shape the internal structure and, ultimately, the functional properties of mozzarella.