Measurement of Dynamic Responses from Large Structural Tests by Analyzing Non-Synchronized Videos

Image analysis techniques have been employed to measure displacements, deformation, crack propagation, and structural health monitoring. With the rapid development and wide application of digital imaging technology, consumer digital cameras are commonly used for making such measurements because of their satisfactory imaging resolution, video recording capability, and relatively low cost. However, three-dimensional dynamic response monitoring and measurement on large-scale structures pose challenges of camera calibration and synchronization to image analysis. Without satisfactory camera position and orientation obtained from calibration and well-synchronized imaging, significant errors would occur in the dynamic responses during image analysis and stereo triangulation. This paper introduces two camera calibration approaches that are suitable for large-scale structural experiments, as well as a synchronization method to estimate the time difference between two cameras and further minimize the error of stereo triangulation. Two structural experiments are used to verify the calibration approaches and the synchronization method to acquire dynamic responses. The results demonstrate the performance and accuracy improvement by using the proposed methods.