A robust approach for automatic detection and segmentation of cracks in underground pipeline images

Buried infrastructures like sewers and water mains have to be checked for their current condition. Cracks are a strong indicator for the condition of a pipe. An affordable way to detect those cracks is to take images of the pipeline and use image processing techniques to detect cracks in these images. The methods used to accomplish this task are mathematical morphology and curvature evaluation to segment images with respect to a precise geometric model to define crack-like patterns. This paper discusses a paper by Shivprakash and Iyer where this method has been proposed. It describes the method, introduces the theoretical backgrounds, discusses the evaluation of the method in the paper and evaluates the paper itself.