Application of point clouds for the monitoring of cracks in controlled environment

Pathological manifestations in civil structures represent one of the main problems that compromise the useful life of constructions, among the most common are cracks or fissures. In this research, the feasibility of using point clouds in the determination and measurement of cracks was investigated. The experiment was carried out in a controlled environment comparing the values obtained by point clouds using photogrammetry with the reference values obtained by laser interferometer (our reference). The results indicated that point clouds generated from a scanner that uses structured light for modeling exhibited high consistency with reference values, with differences of less than a millimeter. Conversely, portable scanning equipment with lower resolution demonstrated limited performance, unable to accurately define crack dimensions below one centimeter. These findings highlight that the applicability of point clouds for crack monitoring is strongly dependent on the scanning technology employed. The research confirms the potential of structured-light 3D scanning as a reliable and cost-effective approach for structural health monitoring and early damage assessment.

Keywords:
Point Cloud; Cracks; Structural Health Monitoring; Portable Scanner