Case Study: University of Twente maps earthquake building damage with Pix4D drones and 3D point clouds

Seismic building damage mapping with drones

University of Twente used Pix4Dmapper to support research on seismic building damage mapping after earthquakes. The team needed a way to capture very high-resolution imagery and detailed 3D data for an entire building, since cracks and spalling are critical indicators for civil engineers but were difficult to document well before the UAV era.

Pix4D helped University of Twente calibrate cameras, compute precise image orientation, and generate 3D point clouds from about 346 drone and terrestrial images over a 0.5-hectare site in Germany. By combining geometric damage indicators from the point cloud with crack and spalling analysis from the images, the researchers were able to better identify damage such as a bent roof structure and continue developing their post-processing workflow for damage assessment.

University of Twente