Fundamental study on automatic extraction method of areas with damaged houses considering direction characteristics of edge lines on aerial photo

Abstract

At the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, many narrow roads were blocked by collapsed houses and telegraph poles. As a result, emergency vehicles could not pass and serious trouble of rescue and restoration activities was caused. From viewpoint of post-earthquake countermeasure, we have a new appreciation that it is very important to both quickly and exactly grasp the damage situation immediately after an earthquake. However, great time and labor are needed to grasp the damage situation in a wide-scale disaster. In this study, image analysis of air photos was found to be useful to understand various damage situations extensively and immediately. We developed a method of automatic extraction of damaged building areas using only edge information.