Measurement of Apparent Building Damage by Using a Single Image

Abstract

In the proposed detection method, a single image was used for the rapid quantitative measurement of the damage area of a building. By using cross-ratio invariability between real and image coordinates, the damage area and the side lengths of the selected region were measured using the vanishing point, the vanishing line, and a line segment with a known length. Perspective transformation and image binarisation were performed on the selected frame to convert the length into area information. The damage area was obtained rapidly from the proportion of pixels in the damage region to pixels in the selected region. Corner detection and subpixel methods were combined to determine measurement errors because of the selection of measurement points. The experimental results from the example test revealed that quantitative area measurement of surface damage on buildings could be realised using the proposed method.