Ferrer, Belén, Pomares Torres, Juan Carlos, Irles Más, Ramón, Espinosa, Julián, Mas, David Image processing for safety assessment in Civil Engineering FERRER, Belén, et al. “Image processing for safety assessment in Civil Engineering”. To be published in Applied Optics, May 2013. ISSN 1559-128X URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/28556 DOI: ISSN: 1559-128X (Print) Abstract: Behaviour analysis of construction safety systems is of fundamental importance to avoid accidental injuries. Traditionally, measurements of dynamic actions in Civil Engineering have been done through accelerometers, but high-speed cameras and image processing techniques can play an important role in this area. Here, we propose using morphological image filtering and Hough transform on high-speed video sequence as tools for dynamic measurements on that field. The presented method is applied to obtain the trajectory and acceleration of a cylindrical ballast falling from a building and trapped by a thread net. Results show that safety recommendations given in construction codes can be potentially dangerous for workers. Keywords:Pattern recognition, Target tracking, Nondestructive testing Optical Society of America info:eu-repo/semantics/article