PITA Fiscal Year 2009 Projects - Innovative Infrastructure System
   Assessment Technology

A prototypical interface for integrated visualization of advanced pipe inspection data

Principal Investigators: Dr. James H. Garrett, Dr. Lucio Soibelman, Dr. Burcu Akinci

The development of an interface for integrated visualization of pipe inspection data is motivated by two factors. First, by the need for proactive approaches for pipe management, which requires systematic inspection and therefore means to assess and visualize the evolution of pipe conditions over time. Second, by the development of multisensory technologies, which creates a myriad of information items that need to be communicated to management personnel and a challenging reporting task based on information acquired by several sensing sources. Considering these motivational factors, the goals of the research are: (1) to identify information requirements of condition assessment of pipelines; (2) to develop a user interface to query and visualize pipe condition either as a snapshot or over time. In order to achieve the proposed goals, the CMU team will collaborate with RedZone Robotics, which will provide the necessary hardware, and expertise on sewer pipeline condition assessment reporting. In addition, the CMU team will collaborate with a local Pittsburgh company, InspectTech, which has expertise on providing condition assessment reporting for bridge inspections and will provide software platforms for our prototype system.