ABSTRACT
This chapter explores technologies that are promising in terms of shaping the future of underwater inspections for built infrastructure and discusses improvements that can be made to current methodologies. It presents a workflow for feeding 3D data, obtained through stereo imaging, into a computational fluid dynamics software package for further analysis. The chapter examines the value that virtual reality can bring to underwater inspections and describes how immersive virtual underwater scenes can assist divers and inspectors when planning and conducting real-world inspections. It looks at algorithmic advances in the field of image-processing and deep learning techniques. The chapter also looks at how smartphones can act as viable video acquisition devices. It deals with how archived inspection imagery can be used by inspectors/divers for both assessments and to guide future inspections.
