Large-Scale 3D Roadside Modelling with Road Geometry Analysis: Digital Roads New Zealand

Latest developments in camera technology and computer vision, as well as in computer and communication technologies, contribute to improving safety on roads by the development of new key technologies, such as autonomous driving or driver-assistance systems. These new technologies need to be tested extensively and purposefully, and supported by environment or infrastructure models or integrated sensors. The paper reports about a project "Digital Roads New Zealand". Novel sensor technologies, including stereo vision and odometry, have been used for recording, modelling and analysing a large test site. It is demonstrated how those data can be used for detecting changes in road geometry, such as various forms of road surface distress. An important novelty of the shown solution is the scale of the project (i.e. size of the digitised area using car-mounted sensors) together with the achieved very high accuracy in road-geometry analysis.