Digital Imaging Concepts and Applications in Pavement Management

The potential application of image-processing methods to automate the manual data collection and visual rating of pavement surface conditions has not been widely recognized until relatively recently. A cost-effective automated system to capture and extract pavement-surface distress from video images would improve safety and efficiency, and could offer consistency and uniformity of data and data quality, both locally and nationally. The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction for transportation engineers, especially pavement engineers, to digital image-processing concepts and applications in pavement management. This includes pavement-surface-distress data of concern, basic machine-vision and digital-image-processing concepts, video-system characteristics for automated distress-data collection, and existing systems for digital imaging in pavement management in the United States, Japan, and France. It is concluded that in a relatively short time substantial progress has been made in the development of automated systems for distress-data acquisition and interpretation, and enhanced capabilities can be expected in the near future. Digital imaging technology is playing a significant role in these efforts.