A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models

In the last two decades, significant research has been conducted in the field of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics from three-dimensional (3D) models. This provides several methodologies for acquiring discontinuity measurements from 3D models, such as point clouds gener...

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Main Authors: Rushikesh Battulwar, Masoud Zare-Naghadehi, Ebrahim Emami, Javad Sattarvand
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2021-08-01
Series:Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674775521000287
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spelling doaj-7af71d1eca944c3999deab74c9af47dc2021-07-13T04:08:55ZengElsevierJournal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering1674-77552021-08-01134920936A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface modelsRushikesh Battulwar0Masoud Zare-Naghadehi1Ebrahim Emami2Javad Sattarvand3Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, The University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USA; Corresponding author.Department of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, The University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USADepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USADepartment of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, The University of Nevada, Reno, NV, 89557, USAIn the last two decades, significant research has been conducted in the field of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics from three-dimensional (3D) models. This provides several methodologies for acquiring discontinuity measurements from 3D models, such as point clouds generated using laser scanning or photogrammetry. However, even with numerous automated and semi-automated methods presented in the literature, there is not one single method that can automatically characterize discontinuities accurately in a minimum of time. In this paper, we critically review all the existing methods proposed in the literature for the extraction of discontinuity characteristics such as joint sets and orientations, persistence, joint spacing, roughness and block size using point clouds, digital elevation maps, or meshes. As a result of this review, we identify the strengths and drawbacks of each method used for extracting those characteristics. We found that the approaches based on voxels and region growing are superior in extracting joint planes from 3D point clouds. Normal tensor voting with trace growth algorithm is a robust method for measuring joint trace length from 3D meshes. Spacing is estimated by calculating the perpendicular distance between joint planes. Several independent roughness indices are presented to quantify roughness from 3D surface models, but there is a need to incorporate these indices into automated methodologies. There is a lack of efficient algorithms for direct computation of block size from 3D rock mass surface models.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674775521000287Rock massDiscontinuity characterizationAutomatic extractionThree-dimensional (3D) point cloud
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Rushikesh Battulwar
Masoud Zare-Naghadehi
Ebrahim Emami
Javad Sattarvand
spellingShingle Rushikesh Battulwar
Masoud Zare-Naghadehi
Ebrahim Emami
Javad Sattarvand
A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
Rock mass
Discontinuity characterization
Automatic extraction
Three-dimensional (3D) point cloud
author_facet Rushikesh Battulwar
Masoud Zare-Naghadehi
Ebrahim Emami
Javad Sattarvand
author_sort Rushikesh Battulwar
title A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
title_short A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
title_full A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
title_fullStr A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
title_full_unstemmed A state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
title_sort state-of-the-art review of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics using three-dimensional surface models
publisher Elsevier
series Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
issn 1674-7755
publishDate 2021-08-01
description In the last two decades, significant research has been conducted in the field of automated extraction of rock mass discontinuity characteristics from three-dimensional (3D) models. This provides several methodologies for acquiring discontinuity measurements from 3D models, such as point clouds generated using laser scanning or photogrammetry. However, even with numerous automated and semi-automated methods presented in the literature, there is not one single method that can automatically characterize discontinuities accurately in a minimum of time. In this paper, we critically review all the existing methods proposed in the literature for the extraction of discontinuity characteristics such as joint sets and orientations, persistence, joint spacing, roughness and block size using point clouds, digital elevation maps, or meshes. As a result of this review, we identify the strengths and drawbacks of each method used for extracting those characteristics. We found that the approaches based on voxels and region growing are superior in extracting joint planes from 3D point clouds. Normal tensor voting with trace growth algorithm is a robust method for measuring joint trace length from 3D meshes. Spacing is estimated by calculating the perpendicular distance between joint planes. Several independent roughness indices are presented to quantify roughness from 3D surface models, but there is a need to incorporate these indices into automated methodologies. There is a lack of efficient algorithms for direct computation of block size from 3D rock mass surface models.
topic Rock mass
Discontinuity characterization
Automatic extraction
Three-dimensional (3D) point cloud
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674775521000287
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