Structure of an Augmented Situational Visualization Framework for Rapid Building Damage Evaluation

This paper presents research being conducted at the University of Michigan to design and implement a new, rapid post-disaster building damage reconnaissance technology. The technology being designed will allow onsite damage inspectors to retrieve previously stored building information, superimpose that information onto a real structure in augmented reality, and evaluate building damage, structural integrity, and safety by simply measuring and interpreting key differences between the baseline image and the real view. In addition, by using feedback from the actual view of a building, it will be possible to update structural analysis models and conduct detailed what-if simulations to explore how a building might collapse if critical structural members fail, or how the building’s stability could best be enhanced by strengthening key structural members. Building data, recorded earthquake strong motion data, and computing resources necessary for the carrying out the intensive simulation computations will be made available through a computational grid interconnected by a high-speed, high-bandwidth network. All analyses will be conducted on-site, in real-time, and at a very low cost using lightweight, field deployable computers connected to a grid gateway via wireless connections. This will enable a quantum leap over current damage evaluation practices that are significantly prolonged, expensive to conduct, and often inaccurate. The objectives of this paper are to introduce the overall structure of the framework and to present details on the method of computing global building damage measures using augmented reality.