Method and apparatus for determining the quality of fresh concrete or the like

An apparatus for analyzing the quality and quantity of bubbles or droplets of a dispersed phase in a construction material before or during curing of said dispersion while in a non-solid state with the dispersed phase entrapped therein, wherein the apparatus comprising at least:

• an at least partially transparent plate with a first side to be placed in contact with a sample of said construction material, in order to make a surface of said sample visible through said transparent plate;
• said at least partially transparent plate is contained in a probe housing which is in contact with said construction material sample, in order to collect visual data from the surface of the sample,
• at least two light sources for illuminating said surface of said sample through said transparent plate from an opposite second side of said plate with different colors and from different directions;
• a photosensitive sensor located on said second side of said plate for receiving light reflected from said sample through said transparent plate;
• an imaging device arranged to receive from said photosensitive sensor electrical signals corresponding to said received reflected light and to render from said electrical signals a visual representation of said surface of said sample;
• and
• a computer system functionally connected to said imaging device, wherein said computer system comprises at least one processing core, at least one memory including computer program code, at least one memory and the computer program code being configured to, with the at least one processing core, cause the apparatus at least to:
• control the light sources to collect multiple sets of visual data over time in different lighting conditions when at least part of said light sources are switched on and off as controlled by said computer system;
• identify bubbles or droplets of said dispersed phase from said surface of the sample by a spatial illumination encoding of the sample;
• and
• determine the size and location of identified bubbles or droplets of said dispersed phase;
• and to
• compute an indication of the quality of said construction material based on the size and distribution of the identified bubbles or droplets of said dispersed phase in said sample.