Vision systems examine cracks in pavement

A technical paper written by Richard Wix and Roland Leschinski from theARRB Group (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) assesses the pros and cons of four different systems currently used to measure cracking in pavements.

The roughness and texture of the surface of pavements have been successfully measured from moving vehicles for some years, but there has been limited success in measuring cracking accurately.

Existing systems assess the amount of cracking in a pavement by capturing images of their surface -- images that are analyzed using automated crack identification algorithms or by manual visual assessment.

In the ARRB Group study entitled "Cracking – A Tale of Four Systems," Wix and Leschinski compare the effectiveness of four systems, two of which rely on natural light and manual image analysis and two that feature artificial illumination and automatic crack detection and measurement.

The study, which was presented at the 25th ARRB Conference in Perth, Australia last year, can be found here.

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-- Dave Wilson, Senior Editor,Vision Systems Design