“…However, these techniques are usually only suitable for observing the damaged specimens after the experiments, rather than reflecting crack development during the damage process of rock in real time. With the development of graphics processing technology, a nondestructive measurement technology, that is, digital image correlation (DIC) method, has been successfully applied to the nondestructive testing of rock, concrete, metal and other engineering materials 19,20 . By using the DIC technology, not only the full‐field displacement and strain distribution during the rock fracture process can be obtained but the cracking characteristics such as crack shape, crack opening displacement and process zone length can also be extracted 21,22 .…”