# DebrisTracer: Reliable Tracking in Hypervelocity Impact Fast Imaging

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.15986 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.15986/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 86 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Jul 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [The Topology ToolKit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.09110/) (2018)
- [Wasserstein Distances, Geodesics and Barycenters of Merge Trees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.07789/) (2021)
- [Task-based Augmented Contour Trees with Fibonacci Heaps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.04805/) (2019)
- [Scalar Field Comparison with Topological Descriptors: Properties and Applications for Scientific Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00157/) (2021)
- [Ranking Viscous Finger Simulations to an Acquired Ground Truth with Topology-aware Matchings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07841/) (2019)
- [Discrete Morse Sandwich: Fast Computation of Persistence Diagrams for Scalar Data -- An Algorithm and A Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.13932/) (2022)
- [Topological Analysis of Ensembles of Hydrodynamic Turbulent Flows -- An Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14080/) (2022)
- [Lifted Wasserstein Matcher for Fast and Robust Topology Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.05870/) (2018)
- [Localized Topological Simplification of Scalar Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.00083/) (2020)
- [Edit Distance between Merge Trees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08511/) (2022)
- [Topology-Based Feature Design and Tracking for Multi-Center Cyclones](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08676/) (2020)
- [Merge Tree Geodesics and Barycenters with Path Mappings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03672/) (2023)
- [Tracking Low-Level Cloud Systems with Topology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10850/) (2025)
- [Probabilistic Gradient-Based Extrema Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08956/) (2023)
- [Time-varying Extremum Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17652/) (2024)
- [BondMatcher: H-Bond Stability Analysis in Molecular Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.03205/) (2025)
- [A Comparative Study of Different Edit Distance-Based Methods for Feature Tracking using Merge Trees on Time-Varying Scalar Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.17974/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This application paper presents DebrisTracer, a framework for the reliable tracking of debris in hypervelocity impact fast imaging. These noisy and highly specific datasets capture the ejection of a large number of debris fragments after the impact of a projectile launched at hypervelocity into a target material. The reliable estimation of debris mass and speed distributions is of major importance in aerospace applications. We document how to extend an off-the-shelf topology tracking framework based on critical point extraction and matching, in order to incorporate domain knowledge and physical assumptions. Our approach automatically produces an accurate and reliable debris tracking, enabling an interpretable visual analysis of this complex space-time phenomenon. Extensive experiments demonstrate the accuracy improvements provided by our approach over established tools used by domain experts in terms of physical validation, specifically via the prediction of the experimental ejected mass and crater depth profiles. We illustrate the utility of our approach across several use cases (with varying impact angles and physics). We show that our statistical summaries enable the visual identification of distinct regimes within the debris population, corroborating and refining prior expectations of domain experts. Our database and our C++ implementation are available at this address: https://github.com/tloloum/DebrisTracer.