Photogrammetry and Augmented Reality for Underground Infrastructure Sensing, Mapping and Assessment

Digital three-dimensional (3-D) information concerning the location and condition of subsurface urban infrastructure is emerging as a potential new paradigm for aiding in the assessment, construction, emergency response, management, and planning of these vital assets. Subsurface infrastructure encompasses utilities (water, stormwater, wastewater, gas, electricity, telecommunications, steam, etc.), geotechnical formations, and the built underground (including tunnels, subways, garages and subsurface buildings). Traditional approaches for collecting location information include merging as-built drawings, historical records, and dead reckoning; and combining with information gathered by above-ground geophysical instruments, such as ground penetrating radars, magnetometers and acoustic sensors. This paper presents results of efforts aimed at using photogrammetric and augmented reality (AR) techniques to aid collecting, processing, and presenting 3-D location information.