Estimation of rock joint roughness using binocular stereo vision

To quickly and cost-effectively evaluate the joint roughness coefficient (JRC) of the rock joints, a technique based on binocular stereo vision was developed to reconstruct the three-dimensional (3D) model. After camera calibration, only two images of rock joints were needed to be captured for 3D reconstruction. Then, the generated point clouds were processed to extract the geometric information, mainly focusing on the JRC calculation. A comparison was made with the point clouds obtained from laser scanning to verify the proposed method, and the possibility of the method in large-scale modeling was also explored. The results show that the proposed technique for 3D reconstruction of rock joints can meet the basic accuracy requirements in laboratory work, and it has a good consistency in roughness estimation with laser scanning. Compared to traditional photogrammetry, this method significantly simplifies the working procedure to improve measurement efficiency and reduce the project cost.