| Following a natural disaster, there is a need to rapidly assess the safety of civil infrastructure. This job is typically undertaken by local governments with the help of volunteer civil engineers with structural expertise, as well as organizations such as Cal EMA and ASCE. However, the inspection process is labor-intensive and a bit tedious, and results are prone to error as they tend to rely on the individual expertise of the inspectors. 3D reconstruction stands to become a useful tool in the safety evaluation process, as well as providing valuable opportunities for forensic engineering. This research explores the application of a low cost, rapidly deployable 3D reconstruction system for post-natural disaster documentation and analysis of civil infrastructure.;A review of the process of 3D reconstruction was conducted. Likewise, a review of existing technology used for disaster scene analysis was performed. Two potentially useful 3D reconstruction toolkits were examined: FIT3D and Autodesk 123D Catch, of which the latter was determined to be best suited for the task at hand. Experiments were conducted to determine the best methodology for producing accurate 3D models as well as calculating the inherent error in the model. It was found that measurements obtained from the 3D model were accurate within approximately 0.3 inches. |
