Impact of Image Resolution on Pavement Distress Detection Using Picucha Methodology

An accurate and regular survey of the road surface distresses is a key factor for pavement rehabilitation design and management, allowing public managers to maximize the value of the continuously limited budgets for road improvements and maintenance. Manual pavement distress surveys are labor-intensive, expensive and unsafe for highly-trafficked highways. Over the years, automated surveys using various hardware devices have been developed and improved for pavement field data collection to solve the problems associated with manual surveys. However, the reliable distress detection software and the data analysis remain challenging. This study focused on the analysis of a newly-developed pavement distress classification algorithm, called the PICture Unsupervised Classification with Human Analysis (PICUCHA) method, particularly the impact of image resolutions on its classification accuracy. The results show that a non-linear relationship exists between the classification accuracy and the image resolution, suggesting that images with a resolution around 1.24 mm/pixel may provide the optimal classification accuracy when using the PICUCHA method. The findings of this study can help to improve more effective uses of the specialize software for pavement distress classification, to support decision makers to choose cameras according to their budgets and desired survey accuracy, and to evaluate how existing cameras will perform if used with PICUCHA.