Automated vision tracking of project related entities

Tracking of project related entities such as construction equipment, materials, and personnel is used to calculate productivity, detect travel path conflicts, enhance the safety on the site, and monitor the project. Radio frequency tracking technologies (Wi-Fi, RFID, UWB) and GPS are commonly used for this purpose. However, on large-scale sites, deploying, maintaining and removing such systems can be costly and time-consuming. In addition, privacy issues with personnel tracking often limits the usability of these technologies on construction sites. This paper presents a vision based tracking framework that holds promise to address these limitations. The framework uses videos from a set of two or more static cameras placed on construction sites. In each camera view, the framework identifies and tracks construction entities providing 20 image coordinates across frames. Combining the 20 coordinates based on the installed camera system (the distance between the cameras and the view angles of them), 3D coordinates are calculated at each frame. The results of each step are presented to illustrate the feasibility of the framework. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.