International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)

Volume 7, Issue 2, March-April 2016, pp. 215225, Article ID: IJCIET_07_02_019

Available online at
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=7&IType=2
Journal Impact Factor (2016): 9.7820 (Calculated by GISI) www.jifactor.com
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316
IAEME Publication

DAMAGE DETECTION IN BRIDGES USING

IMAGE PROCESSING
Azmat Hussain
Department of civil engineering, Kurukshetra University, India
Saba Bashir
Department of computer Science and engineering, NIT Srinagar, India
Saima Maqbool
Department of computer science and engineering,
Islamic university of science and technology, Srinagar, India
ABSTRACT
Road network such as bridges, culverts have vital role before, during and
after extreme events to reduce the vulnerability of the community being served.
The bridge may be damaged due to severe accidents occurring over it. The
bridge may be damaged fully or partially due to heavy and unexpected gale.
The cost for the maintenance may be high enough and still no one can ensure
us about safety of the bridges or any other structure in future. Whenever there
is disaster, there is damage to the public property. So, we certainly need tools
to detect the Various methods for the rehabilitation of bridges are currently
available including the addition of structural reinforcement components as
steel rebar or reinforced concrete (RC) jackets and bonded steel plates.
Key words: Edge Extraction, Image Processing Pruning, Pixels, Texture
Analysis
Cite this Article: Azmat Hussain, Damage Detection In Bridges Using Image
Processing, International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 7(2),
2016, pp. 215225.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/issues.asp?JType=IJCIET&VType=7&IType=2

1. INTRODUCTION
Many reinforced concrete bridges in highway systems are deteriorated and/or
distressed to such a degree that structural strengthening of the bridge or reducing the
allowable truck loading on the bridge by load posting is necessary to extend the
service life of the bridge. Besides, in motorway networks, over the last few decades,
there was a rapid increase in traffic volume and weight of heavy vehicles and
contemporarily there was a rapid increase in transit speed on railway networks. Many

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

215

editor@iaeme.com

Azmat Hussain, Saba Bashir and Saima Maqbool

bridges, which were built with now obsolete design standards, are not able to carry on
the recent traffic requirements and they require either weight or speed restriction, the
strengthening, or, even, the total replacement. Two methods are currently proving to
be very useful in increasing the cross-section capacity of the bridge beam: The
strengthening by fibres reinforced polymer (FRP) or fiber reinforced cementitious
mortar (FRCM) [310] and the reinforcement with external tendons.
Identifying appropriate applications for technology to assess the health and safety
of bridges is an important issue for bridge owners around the world. Traditionally,
highway bridge conditions have been monitored through visual inspection methods
with structural deficiencies being manually identified and classified by qualified
engineers and inspectors.
It takes longer time to grasp damage, even if serious damages are focused on.
Because it is time-consuming to detect damage by human eyes, it is effective to apply
image processing. When there is unusual weather or an earthquake occurs,
appropriate crisis management is required, including making information available by
detecting and seizing the disaster situations. For example, a road administrator must
quickly grasp a road disaster and, based on the presence/absence of disaster, make
passable routes in the disaster area to the public to provide assistance for the damaged
area, secure traffic safety for road users, and make suitable emergency repairs on
important routes to quickly reopen the roads by removing obstacles. At a serious
earthquake, it takes longer time to grasp damage by facility inspection patrol, even if
we ignore small damage and focus on serious damage. In such a situation, remote
sensing technology can play crucial roles. For Areal-type damage,
1.
2.
3.
4.

Edge extraction,
Unsupervised classification,
Texture analysis, and
Edge enhancement is appropriate to detect damaged area.

For Liner-type damage, Edge extraction is done to detect the damage portion by
image processing.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

216

editor@iaeme.com

Damage Detection In Bridges Using Image Processing

2. RELATED WORK
2.1 Flow chart
Images for detection

Separating RGB component

Histogram

Histogram Equalization

Feature Extraction Algorithm

Morphological Operations on Images

Classification and Matching

GUI based demonstration

3. PROBLEM FORMULATION
3.1. Correlation of the problem
At a serious disaster, it takes longer time to grasp damage by facility inspection patrol,
even if we ignore small damage and focus on serious damage. In such a situation,
remote sensing technology can play crucial roles. To put it concretely, first,
applicability of image processing in order to detect damage from images is presented.
Next, information extraction by human is discussed. Each image processing has its
area of strength. It means that several image processings should be applied to detect
various types of damage. Extraction by human has an advantage that it can apply to
all types of damage. However, a disadvantage is that it is time-consuming to check all
over the images by human eyes. Therefore, method to help personnel to examine
images by using facility data is developed.

4. PROBLEM IMPLEMENTATION
4.1. Images for detection
The pictures of both pre and post damaged bridges are collected.

4.2. Separation of RGB Components

RGB is the format for colour images. It represents an image with three matrices of
sizes matching the image format. Each matrix corresponds to one of the colors red,
http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

217

editor@iaeme.com

Azmat Hussain, Saba Bashir and Saima Maqbool

green or blue and gives an instruction of how much of each of these colors a certain
pixel should use.

4.3. Histogram
An image histogram is a chart that shows the distribution of intensities in an indexed
or greyscale image. We can use the information in a histogram to choose an
appropriate enhancement operation. For example, if an image histogram shows that
the range of intensity values is small, we can use an intensity adjustment function to
spread the values across a wider range.

4.4. Histogram equalization

The process of adjusting intensity values can be done automatically by the histeq
function. Histeq performs histogram equalization, which involves transforming the
intensity values so that the histogram of the output image approximately matches a
specified histogram. Histeq tries to match a flat histogram with 64 bins.

4.5. Feature Extraction Algorithm

The algorithm which is being used is Feature Extraction Algorithm and textural
analysis, spectral extraction and geometric extraction is further done using feature
extraction.
4.5.1 Textural Feature Extraction
For Texture Analysis Co-occurrence matrix method is being used. The use of colour
image features in the visible light spectrum provides additional image characteristic
features over the traditional gray-scale representation.
4.5.2 Spectral Feature Extraction
Spectral clustering techniques make use of the spectrum of the similarity matrix of the
data to perform dimensionality reduction for clustering in fewer dimensions.
4.5.3 Geometric Feature Extraction
In Geometric Feature Extraction, Edge detection method is used.

4.6. Morphological operations on the images

The following operations are performed on images
4.6.1 Dilation: Dilation adds pixels to the boundaries of objects in an image. The
value of the output pixel is the maximum value of all the pixels in the input pixel's
neighborhood. In a binary image, if any of the pixels is set to the value 1, the output
pixel is set to 1.
4.6.2 Erosion: Erosion removes pixels on object boundaries. The value of the output
pixel is the minimum value of all the pixels in the input pixel's neighborhood. In a
binary image, if any of the pixels is set to 0, the output pixel is set to 0.
4.6.3 Opening: Morphological opening is used to remove small objects from an
image while preserving the shape and size of larger objects in the image.
4.6.4 Closing: The Morphological Close object performs morphological closing on an
intensity or binary image. The Morphological Close System object performs a dilation
operation followed by an erosion operation using a predefined neighborhood or
structuring element. This System object uses flat structuring elements only.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

218

editor@iaeme.com

Damage Detection In Bridges Using Image Processing

4.6.5 Pruning: The pruning algorithm is a technique used in digital image

processing based on mathematical morphology. It is used as a complement to
the skeleton and thinning algorithms to remove unwanted parasitic components.
These components can often be created by edge detection algorithms or digitisation.
4.6.6 Skeltonization: To reduce all objects in an image to lines, without changing the
essential structure of the image. This process is known as skeletonization.

4.7. Matching Threshold

During the thresholding process, individual pixels in an image are marked as "object"
pixels if their value is greater than some threshold value (assuming an object to be
brighter than the background) and as "background" pixels otherwise. This convention
is known as threshold above. Variants include threshold below, which is opposite of
threshold above; threshold inside, where a pixel is labelled "object" if its value is
between two thresholds; and threshold outside, which is the opposite of threshold
inside . Typically, an object pixel is given a value of 1 while a background pixel is
given a value of 0. Finally, a binary image is created by colouring each pixel white
or black, depending on a pixel's labels.

4.8 GUI based demonstration:

A GUI (graphical user interface) allows users to perform tasks interactively through
controls such as buttons and sliders. Within MATLAB, GUI tools enable us to
perform tasks such as creating and customizing plots, fitting curves and surfaces, and
analysing and filtering signals. We can also create custom GUIs for others to use
either by running them in MATLAB or as standalone applications.

5. METHOD
The type of algorithm which is used is feature extraction algorithm.

5.1. Features Extraction

In feature extraction algorithm Textural Analysis, Spectral Extraction and Geometric
Extraction is further done.
5.1.1. Co-occurrence Methodology for Texture Analysis
The image analysis technique selected is the CCM method. The use of colour image
features in the visible light spectrum provides additional image characteristic features
over the traditional gray-scale representation. The CCM methodology established
consists of three major mathematical processes. First, the RGB images of leaves are
converted into Hue Saturation Intensity (HSI) colour space representation. Once this
process is completed, each pixel map is used to generate a colour co-occurrence
matrix, resulting in three CCM matrices, one for each of the H, S and I pixel maps.
(HSI) space is also a popular colour space because it is based on human colour
perception. Electromagnetic radiation in the range of wavelengths of about 400 to 700
nanometers is called visible light because the human visual system is sensitive to this
range. Hue is generally related to the wavelength of a light and intensity shows the
amplitude of a light. Lastly, saturation is a component that measures the
colourfulness in HSI space. Colour spaces can be transformed from one space to
another easily.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

219

editor@iaeme.com

Azmat Hussain, Saba Bashir and Saima Maqbool

The colour co-occurrence texture analysis method was developed through the use
of Spatial Gray-level Dependence Matrices (SGDMs). The gray level co-occurrence
methodology is a statistical way to describe shape by statistically sampling the way
certain grey-levels occur in relation to other grey-levels. These matrices measure the
probability that a pixel at one particular gray level will occur at a distinct distance and
orientation from any pixel given that pixel has a second particular gray level. For a
position operator p, we can define a matrix Pij that counts the number of times a pixel
with grey level i occurs at position p from a pixel with grey-level j. The SGDMs are
represented by the function P (i, j, d, ) where I represents the gray level of the
location (x, y) in the image I(x, y), and j represents the gray level of the pixel at a
distance d from location (x, y) at an orientation angle of . The reference pixel at
image position (x, y) is shown as an asterix. All the neighbors from 1 to 8 are
numbered in a clockwise direction. Neighbors 1 and 5 are located on the same plane
at a distance of 1 and an orientation of 0 degrees. An example image matrix and its
SGDM are already given in the three equations above.
In this, a one pixel offset distance and a zero degree orientation angle was used.
After the transformation processes, the feature set for H and S are calculated, and (I)
is being dropped since it does not give extra information.
5.1.2 Texture Features Identification
The following features set were computed for the components H and S:
The angular moment is used to measure the homogeneity of the image, and is
defined as shown in Equation

The product moment (cov) is analogous to the covariance of the intensity cooccurrence matrix and is defined as shown in Equation

The sum and difference entropies which are computed using Equations below

The entropy feature is a measure of the amount of order in an image, and is

computed as

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

220

editor@iaeme.com

Damage Detection In Bridges Using Image Processing

The information measures of correlation is defined

Where:

Contrast of an image can be measured by the inverse difference moment as shown

Correlation is a measure of intensity linear dependence in the image and is defined

as

5.2. Spectral Feature Extraction

The algorithm used for spectral analysis is spectral clustering.
Given a data set S = {s1... Sn} to be clustered
1. Calculate the affinity matrix Aij = exp (-||si sj||2/22), if i j and Aii= 0 where 2 is
the scaling parameter
2. Define D to be the diagonal matrix whose (i,i)-element is the sum of As i-th row,
and construct the matrix L = D-1/2 AD-1/2
3. Find k largest eigenvectors of L and form the matrix X = [x1 x2xk ]
4. Form the matrix Y from X by normalizing each of Xs rows to have unit length, Yij =
Xij/(j Xij2)1/2
5. Treating each row of Y as a point, cluster them into k clusters via K means or any
other algorithm.
6. Assign the original point si to cluster j if and only if row i of the matrix Y was
assigned to cluster j.

5.3. Geometric Feature Extraction:

In Geometric Feature Extraction the Edge detection algorithm is used. Edge detection
algorithms operate on the premise that each pixel in a grayscale digital image has
a first derivative, with regard to the change in intensity at that point, if a significant
change occurs at a given pixel in the image, then a white pixel is placed in the binary
image, otherwise, a black pixel is placed there instead. In general, the gradient is
calculated for each pixel that gives the degree of change at that point in the image.
The question basically amounts to how much change in the intensity should be
required in order to constitute an edge feature in the binary image. A threshold
value, T, is often used to classify edge points. Some edge finding techniques calculate
the second derivative to more accurately find points that correspond to a local
maximum or minimum in the first derivative. This technique is often referred to as a
Zero Crossing because local maxima and minima are the places where the second
derivative equal zero, and its left and right neighbors are non-zero with opposite
signs.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

221

editor@iaeme.com

Azmat Hussain, Saba Bashir and Saima Maqbool

6. IMPLEMENTATION OF ALGORITHMS
The three sets of both pre and post damaged bridges are collected on which texture
analysis feature extraction is performed. The figure below shows a normal bridge
followed by its rgb2gray conversion, its histogram and histogram equalization

The figure below shows the damaged bridge followed by its rgb2gray conversion,
its histogram and histogram equalization

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

222

editor@iaeme.com

Damage Detection In Bridges Using Image Processing

Texture Analysis of damaged bridge

7. CONCLUSION
Using the images after the Damage, the spectral characteristics of damaged bridges
can be investigated. For areal-type damage, 1) edge extraction, 2) unsupervised
classification, 3) texture analysis, 4) edge enhancement and 5) operations between
images are suitable to detect damaged area. In this way, it is possible to find areal-

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

223

editor@iaeme.com

Azmat Hussain, Saba Bashir and Saima Maqbool

type damage. However, For Liner-type damage, Edge extraction is done to detect the
damage portion by image processing

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]
[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]
[12]

[13]

[14]

Alexander, D., 1991. Information technology in real-time for monitoring and

managing natural disasters. Progress in Physical Geography, 15(3), pp. 238-260.
Gornyi, V.I. and Latypov, I.S., 2002. Possibility for the development of a
scanning radiometer with synthesized aperture: Experimental verification.
Doklady Earth Sciences, 387(8), pp. 962-964.
Hasegawa, H., Aoki, H., Yamazaki, F., Matsuoka, M. and Sekimoto, I., 2000a.
Automated detection of damaged buildings using aerial HDTV images,
International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Honolulu, USA,
IEEE, CD-ROM.
Hasegawa, H., Yamazaki, F., Matsuoka, M. and Sekimoto, I., 2000b. Extraction
of building damage due to earthquakes using aerial television images, 12th world
conference on earthquake engineering, Auckland, New Zealand, No. 1722: CDROM.
Kerle, N. and Oppenheimer, C., 2002. Satellite remote sensing as a tool in lahar
disaster management. Disasters, 26(2), pp. 140-160.
Mitomi, H., Yamzaki, F. and Matsuoka, M., 2000. Automated detection of
building damage due to recent earthquakes using aerial television images, Asian
Conference on Remote Sensing, Taipei, Taiwan.
Ozisik, D. and Kerle, N., 2004. Post-earthquake damage assessment using
satellite and airborne data in the case of the Istanbul, Turkey. van Westen, C.J.
and Hofstee, P., 2001.
The role of remote sensing and GIS in risk mapping and damange assessment for
disaster in urban areas, Second forum catastrophy mitigation : natural disasters,
impact, mitigation, tools, Leipzig, Germany, pp. 442-450.
Walter, L.S., 1994. Natural hazard assessment and mitigation from space: the
potential of remote sensing to meet operational requirements, Natural hazard
assessment and mitigation: the unique role of remote sensing, Royal Society,
London, UK, pp. 7-12.
Wang, Z. and Bovik, A.C., 2002. A universal image quality index. IEEE Signal
Processing Letters, 9(3), pp. 81-84. Yamazaki, F., 2001. Applications of remote
sensing and GIS for damage assessment, 8th International Conference on
Structural Safety and Reliability, Newport Beach, USA.
R. Gonzales and R. Woods, Digital image processing, Prentice Hall, Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey.
A. Medda and V. DeBrunner, Near-Field Sub-band Beam forming for Damage
Detection in Bridges, Structural Health Monitoring, and International Journal,
to be Published.
M. Matsuoka and F. Yamazaki, Characteristics of Satellite Images of Damaged
Areas due to the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, Proc. of 2 nd Conference on the
Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS for Disaster Management, The George
Washington University, CD-ROM, 1999.
R.T. Eguchi, C.K. Huyck, B. Houshmand, B. Mansouri, M. Shinozuka, F.
Yamazaki and M. Matsuoka, The Marmara Earthquake: A View from space:
The Marmara, Turkey Earthquake of August 17, 1999: Reconnaissance Report,
Technical Report MCEER-00-0001, pp.151- 169, 2000.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

224

editor@iaeme.com

Damage Detection In Bridges Using Image Processing

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]

[20]

[21]

[22]

[23]

[24]
[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

M. Estrada, F. Yamazaki and M. Matsuoka, Use of Landsat Images for the

Identification of Damage due to the 1999 Kocaeli, Turkey Earthquake, Proc. of
21st Asian Conference on Remote Sensing, pp. 1185-1190, Singapore, 2001
H. Mitomi, J. Saita, M. Matsuoka and F. Yamazaki, Automated Damage
Detection of Buildings from Aerial Television Images of the 2001 Gujarat, India
Earthquake, Proc. of the IGARSS 2001, IEEE, CDROM, 3p, 2001.
K. Saito, R.J.S. Spence, C. Going and M. Markus, Using high resolution satellite
images for post-earthquake building damage assessment: a study following the 26
January 2001 Gujarat Earthquake, Earthquake Spectra, vol. 20 (1), pp. 145169,
2004.
T.T. Vu, M. Matsuoka and F. Yamazaki, Detection and Animation of Damage
Using Very High-resolution Satellite Data Following the 2003 Bam, Iran,
Earthquake Earthquake Spectra, vol. 21 (S1), pp. S319- S327, 2005.
F. Yamazaki, Y. Yano and M. Matsuoka, Visual Damage Interpretation of
Buildings in Bam City Using Quick Bird Images Following the 2003 Bam, Iran,
Earthquake, Earthquake Spectra, vol. 21 (S1), S329-S336, 2005.
M. Matsuoka and F. Yamazaki, Use of SAR Imagery for Monitoring Areas
Damaged Due to The 2006 Mid Java, Indonesia Earthquake, Proc. of 4th
International workshop on Remote Sensing for Post- Disaster Response,
Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2006.
K. Matsumoto, T.T. Vu and F. Yamazaki, Extraction of damaged buildings
using high resolution satellite images in the 2006 Central Java Earthquake, Proc.
of ACRS 2006, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 2006.
L. Gusella, B.J. Adams, G. Bitelli, C.K. Huyck, and A. Mognol, Object oriented
image understanding and post-earthquake damage assessment for the 2003 Bam,
Iran, earthquake. Earthquake Spectra, vol. 21 (S1), pp. S225-S238, 2005.
T.T. Vu, M. Matsuoka and F. Yamazaki, Preliminary results in Development of
an Object-based Image Analysis Method for Earthquake Damage Assessment,
Proc. of 3rd International workshop on Remote Sensing for Post-Disaster
Response, Chiba, Japan, 2005.
T.T. Vu, M. Matsuoka and F. Yamazaki, Towards object-based damage
detection, Proc. of ISPRS workshop DIMAI2005, Bangkok, Thailand, 2005.
T. T. Vu, M. Matsuoka, and F. Yamazaki, Multi-level detection of building
damage due to earthquakes from high resolution satellite images. Proceeding of
SPIE Asia-Pacific Remote Sensing International Symposium, Goa, India, 13-17
Nov. 2006.
Dr. K.v. Ramana reddy, Aerodynamic Stability of A Cable Stayed Bridge,
International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 5(5), 2014, pp. 88
86.
Evinur Cahya, Toshitaka Yamao and Akira Kasai, Seismic Response Behavior
Using Static Pushover Analysis and Dynamic Analysis of Half-Through Steel
Arch Bridge Under Strong Earthquakes, International Journal of Civil
Engineering and Technology, 5(1), 2014, pp. 7388
L. Vincent, Morphological Area Opening and Closings for Greyscale Images,
Proc. NATO Shape in Picture workshop, Driebergen, The Netherlands, SpringerVerlag, pp.197-208, 1992.

http://www.iaeme.com/IJCIET/index.asp

225

editor@iaeme.com