Modeling of Crack Depths in Digital Images of Concrete Pavements Using Optical Reflection Properties
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 6
Abstract
Digital image-based automated pavement crack detection and classification technology has seen vast improvements in the recent years. Although crack lengths and widths can be evaluated using state-of-the-art software with a reasonable accuracy, no reported evidence is found in extending this technology to evaluate crack depths. As a supplement to the existing technology, additional information relevant to pavement crack severity could be revealed by the optical modeling of the image formation process and the subsequent analysis of the variation in pixel intensity profiles within images. A preliminary study was carried out to model the digital image formation of cracked concrete pavements based on the bidirectional reflection distribution function. This study was specifically focused on the optical modeling of shallow longitudinal and transverse cracks as well as joints of concrete pavements using the variation of reflection properties at surface discontinuities. Surface discontinuities were considered to be of regular geometrical shapes for simplification. The new image formation model revealed a definitive relationship among the crack widths and depths and the maximum pixel intensity contrasts seen in the images of the cracks. The model calibration involved the selection of reflection properties to match the pixel intensity contrasts across model generated images of cracks and joints against those of identical cracks formed in concrete pavements. The model predictions of crack depths were also verified using actual crack data not used in the calibration. Finally the usefulness of the calibrated model in evaluating the depths of shallow cracks and differentiating cracks from joints and other surface irregularities in concrete pavements is illustrated.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The experimental efforts of Gabriel Acosta in the formation and evaluation of concrete pavement cracks are acknowledged.
References
Ayenu-Prah, A., and Attoh-Okine, N. (2008). “Evaluating pavement cracks with bidimensional empirical mode decomposition.” EURASIP J. Adv. Signal Process., 2008, Article ID 861701.
Chou J., O’Neill, W. A., and Cheng, H. D. (1994). “Pavement distress classification using neural networks.” Systems, Man, Cybernetics 1, 397–401.
Cook, R. L., and Torrance, K. E. (1981). “Reflectance model for computer graphics.” Comput. Graph., 15(3), 307–316.
He, X. D., Torrance, K. E., Sillion, F. X., and Greenberg, D. P. (1991). “A comprehensive physical model for light reflection.” Comput. Graph., 25(4), 175–186.
Huang, Y., and Xu, B. (2006). “Automatic inspection of pavement cracking distress.” J. Electron. Imaging, 15(1), 013017.
Joshi, S., Sancheti, S., and Goyal, A. (2007). “Specular and diffuse measurements of multipath from various terrain surfaces at 35 GHz.” IET Proc. Microwaves, Antennas Propag., 1(2), 496–500.
Kautz, J., and McCool, M. D. (1999). “Interactive rendering with arbitrary BRDFs using separable approximations.” Eurographics Rendering Workshop, Springer, 247–260.
Lee, H., and Kim, J. (2005). “Development of a crack type index.” Transportation Research Record. 1940, Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C.
Liu, F., Xu, G., Yang, Y., Niu, X., and Pan, Y. (2008). “Novel approach to pavement cracking automatic detection based on segment extending.” Proc., Int. Symp. on Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling, IEEE, Piscataway, N.J., 610–614.
Marschner, S. R., Westin, S. H., Lafortune, E. P. F., and Torrance, K. E. (2000). “Image-based bidirectional reflectance distribution function measurement.” Appl. Opt., 39, 2592–2600.
National Optical Institute. (2008). “LRIS (laser road imaging system).” ⟨http://www.ino.ca/medias/pdfs/library/technical/3D-sensors/Laser_Road_Imaging_System_LRIS.pdf⟩ (Jan. 11, 2008).
Phong, B. T. (1975). “Illumination for computer generated images.” Commun. ACM, 18(6), 311–317.
Rusinkiewicz S. (1998). “A new change of variables for efficient BRDF representation.” Eurographics Rendering Workshop, Springer, 11–22.
Wang, K. C. P. (2000). “Design and implementation of automated systems for pavement surface distress survey.” J. Infrastruct. Syst., 6(1), 24–32.
Ward, G. J. (1992). “Measuring and modeling anisotropic reflectance.” Comput. Graph. 26(2), 265–272.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 6 • June 2010
Pages: 489 - 499
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Dec 18, 2008
Accepted: Aug 14, 2009
Published online: Aug 18, 2009
Published in print: Jun 2010
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.