Tunnel and Underground SpaceISSN:1225-1275(Print) 2287-1748(Online)한국암반공학회

This paper presents a new approach for the automatic mapping of discontinuities in a tunnel face based on its 3D digital model reconstructed by LiDAR scan or photogrammetry techniques. The main idea revolves around the identification of discontinuity areas in the 3D digital model of a tunnel face by segmenting its 2D projected images using a deep-learning semantic segmentation model called U-Net. The proposed deep learning model integrates various features including the projected RGB image, depth map image, and local surface properties-based images i.e., normal vector and curvature images to effectively segment areas of discontinuity in the images. Subsequently, the segmentation results are projected back onto the 3D model using depth maps and projection matrices to obtain an accurate representation of the location and extent of discontinuities within the 3D space. The performance of the segmentation model is evaluated by comparing the segmented results with their corresponding ground truths, which demonstrates the high accuracy of segmentation results with the intersection-over-union metric of approximately 0.8. Despite still being limited in training data, this method exhibits promising potential to address the limitations of conventional approaches, which only rely on normal vectors and unsupervised machine learning algorithms for grouping points in the 3D model into distinct sets of discontinuities.