Critical Assessment of Pavement Distress Segmentation Methods
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 1
Abstract
Image segmentation is the crucial step in automatic image distress detection and classification (e.g., types and severities) and has important applications for automatic crack sealing. Although many researchers have developed pavement distress detection and recognition algorithms, full automation has remained a challenge. This is the first paper that uses a scoring measure to quantitatively and objectively evaluate the performance of six different segmentation algorithms. Up-to-date research on pavement distress detection and segmentation is comprehensively reviewed to identify the research need. Six segmentation methods are then tested using a diverse set of actual pavement images taken on interstate highway I-75/I-85 near Atlanta and provided by the Georgia Department of Transportation with varying lighting conditions, shadows, and crack positions to differentiate their performance. The dynamic optimization-based method, which was previously used for segmenting low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) digital radiography images, outperforms the other five methods based on our scoring measure. It is robust to image variations in our data set but the computation time required is high. By critically assessing the strengths and limitations of the existing algorithms, the paper provides valuable insight and guideline for future algorithm development that are important in automating image distress detection and classification.
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Acknowledgments
This paper presented was sponsored by Georgia Department of Transportation (Research Project No. UNSPECIFIED07-10) and had the continuous support and involvement of the Office of Maintenance and Office of Material and Research (OMR) by providing the actual pavement images for our study. We also thank Dr. Oleksandr Alekseychuk from Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM Berlin, Germany) for allowing us to use his algorithm in our comparative study.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 1 • January 2010
Pages: 11 - 19
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Dec 23, 2008
Accepted: Apr 2, 2009
Published online: Apr 3, 2009
Published in print: Jan 2010
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