Characterization of the morphology, identification of patterns and quantification of order encountered in colloidal assemblies is essential for several reasons. First of all, it is useful to compare different self-assembly methods and assess the influence of different process parameters on the final colloidal pattern. In addition, casting light on the structures formed by colloidal particles can help to get better insight into colloidal interactions and understand phase transitions. Finally, the growing interest in colloidal assemblies in materials science for practical applications going from optoelectronics to biosensing imposes a thorough characterization of the morphology of colloidal assemblies because of the intimate relationship between morphology and physical properties (e.g. optical and mechanical) of a material. Several image analysis techniques developed to investigate images (acquired via scanning electron microscopy, digital video microscopy and other imaging methods) provide variegated and complementary information on the colloidal structures under scrutiny. However, understanding how to use such image analysis tools to get information on the characteristics of the colloidal assemblies may represent a non-trivial task, because it requires the combination of approaches drawn from diverse disciplines such as image processing, computational geometry and computational topology and their application to a primarily physico-chemical process. Moreover, the lack of a systematic description of such analysis tools makes it difficult to select the ones more suitable for the features of the colloidal assembly under examination. In this review we provide a methodical and extensive description of real-space image analysis tools by explaining their principles and their application to the investigation of two-dimensional colloidal assemblies with different morphological characteristics.

出于几个原因，胶体组件中的形态表征，图案识别和顺序量化至关重要。首先，比较不同的自组装方法并评估不同工艺参数对最终胶体图案的影响非常有用。此外，将光投射在胶体颗粒形成的结构上有助于更好地了解胶体相互作用并了解相变。最后，由于材料的形态与物理性质（例如，光学和机械性质）之间的密切关系，从光电子学到生物传感的实际应用中，对于材料科学中的胶体组件的兴趣日益浓厚，这对胶体组件的形态进行了全面的表征。为研究图像而开发的几种图像分析技术（通过扫描电子显微镜，数字视频显微镜和其他成像方法获得）可在仔细检查下提供关于胶体结构的多样化信息和补充信息。但是，了解如何使用此类图像分析工具获取有关胶体组件特征的信息可能并不容易，因为这需要结合来自不同学科的方法，例如图像处理，计算几何和计算拓扑，以及它们在主要的物理化学过程中的应用。而且，由于缺乏对此类分析工具的系统描述，因此难以选择更适合所检查胶体组件特征的工具。