ABSTRACT
The inspection of existing bridge structures in defined time intervals is an important process for maintenance and repair. Most countries define this process in detailed laws and guidelines as well as the comprehensiveness of a therefore gained documentation of damages or noticeable features. Each inspection task results in a set of heterogeneous data of the surveyed structure, for example images, 3D scans, sensor data or building models from planning processes or previous inspections, which leads to a hardly structured history of data sets. Therefore, the amount of information has to be stored and managed in an effective and understandable manner for each time interval. Additionally, an automated comparison of the consecutive inspection data sets towards a linking of identified damages for further comparison could support the determination of damage developments. This article proposes a method for the documentation and post-processing of inspection data, especially crack geometries, for condition assessment. Therefore, an image based inspection approach combined with a photogrammetric 3D reconstruction is used. The correspondences among the resulting geometrical data are set by detailed described automated linking approaches. Furthermore, a case study shows the application of the developed approach to a simple structure with focus on the automated comparison of cracks under different load conditions.
