A New Graphical Quantitative Evaluation Method of

Concrete Cracks Based on Digital Image Technology and

Fractal Theory
Xianyu Jin1, Bei Li1, Ye Tian1,*, Nanguo Jin1, and Sheng Cheng2
1

Department of Civil Engineering & Architecture,

Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
2
Shum Yip Southern Land (Holeings) CO., LID, China
{Xianyu,cetianye,jinng}@zju.edu.cn, libei_2005@126.com,
chengsheng120515@163.com

Abstract. Based on digital image technology, a graphical extraction method of

concrete cracks was presented. With the help of fractal theory, there is a
characteristic parameter algorithmic method of calculating area, fractal
dimension length, width of concrete cracks and using MTLAB as an
application program calculating the characteristic parameters. The cracks test
analysis in concrete flat slab shows, the graphical extraction method of cracks
has advantages of preciseness, convenience and quickness. The method of
calculating characteristic parameter has high degree of precision. It works well of
describing the irregular characteristic of concrete cracks at early stage with
fractal theory which gives useful tools for quantitative study of concrete cracks.

Keywords: Concrete Cracks, Image Technology, Fractal Theory, Quantitative

Evaluation.

1 Introduction
The early age cracking of concrete is always a formidable and uncontrollable
engineering problem. The cracks will not only affect the appearance of a building, but
also weaken the strength and workability of concrete. The cracks, as a path of corrosive
ions, such as SO42-, CO32-, et al, which means exposing the inside of concrete out,
will influence the long term performance of concrete severely. Although many efforts
have been put forward to resist early age cracking of concrete, but this problem is still
one of the major concerns of the engineers during design, construction and operation.
One of the reasons that limit the investigation of early age cracking of concrete is how
to quantitatively identify the parameters of concrete cracks with efficiency. Currently,
the weighted value of concrete cracks are always defined and calculated with the length
and width of concrete cracks which are measured manually [1]. Because the evaluation
results will be subjectively affected by the measuring procedure, so this method is
*

Corresponding author: Ye Tian, Dr., Lecturer, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture,
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China, Tel.: +86-571-88981320.

Y. Yu, Z. Yu, and J. Zhao (Eds.): CSEEE 2011, Part I, CCIS 158, pp. 275283, 2011.
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

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highly in short of accuracy and efficiency. With the application of digital image
processing technology in civil engineering, the researchers established several new
methods to identify and extract the cracks based on gray threshold principle, such as
maximum entropy threshold method [2], segmentation based on edge intensity [3],
Sobel operator method [4], and maximum between-cluster variance method [5], et al.
But so far there is no universal algorithm that can isolate the complete information of
concrete cracks automatically and accurately in a complicated situation. Especially
when concrete cracks are very small, or the edges of cracks have similar gray scale with
the background, there will be a great possibility of misjudgment in extracting the cracks
from background. In addition with the denoising processing after the segment, these
methods all state a large error tolerance.
In this research, a digital image processing technology was adopted to segment and
extract concrete cracks in high accuracy with Photoshop. And the characteristic
parameters of concrete cracks, such as area, fractal dimension, length and width, were
all calculated and programmed with MATLAB. Then, the irregularity properties of
early age concrete cracks were represented using the Fractal theory.

2 Image Identification of the Concrete Cracks

The quantitative identification of concrete cracks with digital image technology
includes three main steps, image collection, image processing, and image analyzing [6].
2.1 Image Collection of the Concrete Cracks
Image collection is to capture and save the crack pictures using digital cameras.
Ammouche et al [7] suggested to increase the contrast between the cracks and the
background through pretreating the sample surface with dyeing method. However, this
method has tedious procedure with higher requirements for operating personnel.
Moreover, it will introduce new damage information on the edge of the cracks.
Considering the zoom effect of the cracks during shooting, image collection tools
consist of a high-definition digital camera and a reference scale. As the white
rectangular section which is shown in Fig.1, reference scale is a plane object, which is
placed near the crack before the shoot, with a known area. In shooting, the camera
should be placed normal to the cracking surface, so as to avoid image distortion.
Meanwhile the collected image must contain both the reference scale and the crack.
2.2 Image Processing of the Concrete Cracks
Image processing is the basis of image analysis. The key point of image processing is to
distinguish the cracks and the background accurately. The extraction of concrete cracks
can be divided into several steps.
Firstly, using Photoshop, the RGB color image of the concrete cracks, taken by a
digital camera, is converted to a two-dimensional gray image which is shown in Fig. 1.
Secondly, the capture of the crack boundary in an enlarged image should be carried out
with the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop. A multi-snap can be made if the crack is
very long. In each snap, the captured area should be filled in black. Then isolation all

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277

the areas of crack using the Magic Wand Tool and extract the non-cracking area using
the Invert select tool in Photoshop. As shown in Fig.2, once the non-cracking area is
highlighted with white color, the segmentation of concrete cracks is accomplished. The
image resolution of the cracks is determined by the scale of pixels. In this research, the
digital camera can resolute a pixel with the length of 0.0084 mm which means the
image processing can achieve a image with the fineness of 0.0084 mm. Finally, the
binary function in MATLAB is applied to transfer the grayscale image into binary
image.

Fig. 1. A gray image of concrete crack

Fig. 2. An image of concrete crack after

segmentation

2.3 Image Analysis of Concrete Cracks

Binary image matrix of the cracks is made of 0 and 1, which is stored in the basic unit of
pixel. 0 denotes the cracks, with the black color, and 1 states the background with the
white color. Image analysis is a quantitative process to characterize and identify the
parameters of concrete cracks, such as the area, fractal dimension, length and width,
from the binary image with a reasonable algorithm.

3 Determination of the Characteristic Parameters of Concrete

Cracks
Concrete cracks have the features of irregularity, uncertainty, fuzziness and
nonlinearity. This research will represent the irregularity of concrete cracks with its
average area, the number of cracks per unit area, and the total areas of cracks per unit
area using fractal theory [1]. And these parameters are always determined based on the
length, maximum width and the area of concrete cracks. Therefore, this research will
take the area, fractal dimension, length and width as the quantitatively characteristic
parameters in describing the cracks of concrete. And the corresponding algorithms will
be also put forward.

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3.1 Reference Scale

In order to accurately describe the characteristic parameters of concrete cracks, a
reference scale with the area sb is used in shooting. Once the reference scale is
segmented from background during image processing, the number of pixels it contains,
m, can be calculated easily. So, actual area that corresponds to one pixel is sb/m and
actual length that corresponds to one pixel is sb / m .
3.2 Area of Concrete Cracks
The area of concrete cracks is calculated with pixel-covering method. The number of
the pixels that are required to cover the whole crack is obtained by searching the 0
elements of the binary matrix converted from digital image. Therefore, the actual area
of concrete crack can be calculated as:
s = n sb / m .

(1)

where s is the area of the crack, n is the total number of pixels with the value 0 in digital
matrix of binary image.
3.3 Fractal Dimension of Concrete Cracks
In this research, the fractal dimension is calculated and programmed according to the
box dimension calculation method with MATLAB [8]. In calculating the box
dimension, the size of the box is controlled by changing the size of matrix of sub-pixels
using different size of little matrix, named as box, to cover the pixel matrix [9]. The
initial number of the boxes, M, is set as 0 in each mesh generation. If the value of every
element in a little matrix or box equals to1, then this area is background and the value of
M will not change. If the value of any element in a little matrix doesnt equal to1, then
this area is cracks and the value of M will change to M+1. Traversing all sub matrix, the
number of the boxes M is obtained with different size of little matrix covering the pixel
matrix. Then the fractal dimension D and related coefficient rd can be calculated
according to the box dimension calculation method.

13
12
11

f(x)=12.0435-1.2479x

logN

10
9
8
7
6
5
0

logb

Fig. 3. 8 koch curve

Fig. 4. Fractal dimension of 8 koch curve

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279

In this research, the program is verified by calculating the fractal dimension of 8

koch curve, as shown in Fig.3 and 4. Theoretical fractal dimension of 8 koch curve is
1.2618 [8] according to the generation principle of 8 koch curve. The calculated fractal
dimension of 8 koch curve is 1.2479. The related coefficient between the two values is
0.9994 and the error is 1.106%. It means that the value calculated using this algorithm
has a good agreement with the actual results.

3.4 Length of Concrete Cracks

A searching procedure will be made from the first column to the last one of the digital
binary image matrix. The 0 pixels at the top and bottom of each column will be stored
into matrix P and Q respectively as the lower and upper bounds of the crack. P
represents the upper boundary coordinate, valued in (xi, yi) and i=1,2,3 denotes the
storage location in matrix P. And Q states the lower boundary coordinate.
Two methods for the calculation of the length of concrete cracks are presented in this
paper. The first method is asymptotic method. Taking the upper boundary of the crack
for example, it makes use of pixel to cover the edge of crack in turn. From left to right,
the distance between two adjacent pixels is used to represent the length of concrete
crack. And the length of concrete crack can be calculated as the sum of distance
between to adjacent pixels until the last pixel on the right. The length of concrete crack
can be expressed as:
li =

( xi xi 1 )

+ ( yi yi 1 ) sb / m .
2

LI = li .

(2)
(3)

where li is the distance between two adjacent pixels l1=0, LI is the length of the upper
bounds of the crack calculated with asymptotic method.
In the same way, the length of the lower boundary of the crack can be calculated with
the same way. The larger value can be taken as the length of concrete crack.
The second method is fractal method, which is to calculate the length of cracks with
fractal theory. The specific procedure includes following steps. The left and right
ending points of concrete crack are coordinated in the digital image matrix with (xa, ya)
and (xb, yb). And the distance between the two points can be calculated with the
coordinate system. According to fractal theory, fractal dimension demonstrates the
degree of irregularity or tortuosity of concrete crack. So, the larger one of the fractal
dimensions of lower and upper boundaries can be taken as the fractal dimension of the
crack. The length of crack can be demonstrated as:
l=

( xb xa )

+ ( yb ya ) sb / m .

LII = l Db .

(4)
(5)

where L is the length of concrete crack calculated using fractal method, l is the straight
distance between the two ending points of the crack, Db is the fractal dimension of the
crack.

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3.5 Width of Concrete Cracks

Width of concrete cracks includes maximum width and average width of the cracks. In
this research, minimum distance method is used to calculate maximum width of
concrete cracks. In the calculation, the distances between the ith pixel of the upper
boundary to all pixels of the lower boundary are calculated. Among them, the minimum
value is the width of the crack at the ith pixel. With this method, traversing all pixels of
the upper boundary in turn, the widths of the crack corresponding to all pixels of the
upper boundary can be obtained. The maximum one is the maximum width of the
crack. And the average value of all the widths is the average width of the crack. It can
be expressed as:
w i = m in (

Where

(x

xj

(y

yj

sb / m .

(6)

wi is the width at the ith pixel of the upper boundary.

wave = ( wi ) / k .

(7)

wmax = max( wi ).

(8)

Where wmax is the maximum width of concrete crack; wave is the average width of
concrete crack; k states the number of pixels in P matrix.

4 Experimental Results
By means of fractal theory and the image processing method, the early age cracks of
concrete slab were identified. The concrete strength grade was C30 and water/cement
ratio is 0.53. Concrete flat slab test provides a simulation of early age cracking of
concrete in restrained stated at all four sides with a steel square mould with inner size of
600mm600mm63mm. At every side of the mould, two rows of bolts were fixed by
double nuts (10100mm, 14 in total) as the restrained boundary. Concrete flat slab
was put into the curing room with the curing temperature of 303, relative
humidity of 65%5% and wind speed about 3m/s. In twenty four hours, the cracking of
concrete, as shown in Fig.5, was observed using a reading microscope.
The camera used in this research was Canon Powershot a2000IS, with image
pixels of 36482736. The reference scale was a rectangle with the size of
70mm23mm. using the proposed digital image processing technology, the
characteristic parameters of the concrete cracks were recognized. The area of the
cracks s, fractal dimension D, related coefficient rD, length of concrete cracks LI and
LII, maximum width of the cracks wmax and average width of the cracks wave are all
listed in Table 1.

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281

Table 1. Characteristic parameters evaluation of concrete cracks

Crack

S[mm2]

rD

LI [mm]

LII [mm]

1
2
3
4
5
6

14.275
9.251
10.910
24.262
5.291
4.443

1.4035
1.3700
1.2745
1.4193
1.3063
1.3269

0.9948
0.9946
0.9942
0.9953
0.9952
0.9945

103.821
76.440
111.003
133.152
51.823
42.609

98.589
73.667
113.786
122.649
53.960
42.108

wmax
[mm]
0.457
0.236
0.266
0.334
0.221
0.201

wave
[mm]
0.182
0.133
0.125
0.206
0.134
0.131

The numerical reading microscopeJC4-3.0 (measuring accuracy of 0.005mm) was

employed to manually measure the maximum width of the cracks which was denoted as
wtrue. The crack was divided into several parts based on the principle that each part has a
proximately similar width. The length and width of each straight line were measured
using a steel ruler with the measuring accuracy of 1mm and the reading microscope. The
measured length of the crack, stated as Ltrue, was the sum of the lengths of all the parts.
The measured area of the crack, which was presented as Sture ,was the sum of the products
of the length and width of every part. The measured results are shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Measured values of area, length and width of concrete cracks
Cracks number

strue [mm2]

Ltrue [mm]

wtrue [mm]

13.975

100

0.445

9.570

75

0.225

11.265

108

0.260

24.575

130

0.345

5.120

50

0.205

4.660

44

0.195

As demonstrated in Table 1, the calculated fractal dimensions of the concrete crack

using box dimension calculation method all have the related coefficients above 0.99.
This phenomenon indicates that the early age cracks of concrete are of fractal
properties, and the fractal dimension can be taken as a characteristic parameter to
describe concrete cracks. The area, length and width of the cracks all increase with the
growth of fractal dimension.
By comparing Table 1 with Table 2, it can be seen that, using pixel-covering method,
the maximum absolute error of calculated area of concrete crack is 0.355mm2.
With the help of the asymptotic method and fractal method, the maximum absolute
errors of the length of concrete crack are 3.821mm and -7.351mm, respectively.
And with the application of minimum distance method, the width of concrete crack
shows the maximum absolute error of 0.016mm. All the calculated results of
characteristic parameters of concrete crack are in good agreement with the measured
value.

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In this research, the hypothesis test is adopted to verify the new method. It is
assumed that the calculated values of area, length and width are independent with each
other and following Gaussian distributions with the Mathematical expectation of
measure values. s, LI, LII and w denote the ratios of area(s), length (LI, LII)
and maximum width wmax to their corresponding measured values. So s LI,
LII and w will follow to the normal distribution of N(1,2) in which the variance 2
are unknown. And the t test method could be employed to perform the hypotheses test
[10]
. The number of samples for each group of sLILII and w is 6. The level
of significance is assumed as 0.05. Ssam means sample variance. t represents test
statistics. H0 is the null hypothesis. H1 is the alternative hypothesis. Region of rejection
is T. The results of calculation are listed in Table 3.
Table 3. Normal population parameter test of

Inspection

ssam

H0

H1

0.0295

s=1

-0.8762

LI

0.0236

LI=1

LI1

1.8054

LII

0.0495

LII=1

LII

0.0101

0.0362

w=1

1
w1

1.9837

s, L , L
I

II and

[2.567,)
(-,-2.567][2.567,)
(-,-2.567][2.567,)
(-,-2.567][2.567,)

(-,-2.567]

Confidence
level
0.95
0.95
0.95
0.95

As demonstrated in Table 3, when the level of significance is 0.05, the hypothesis test
statistics t of s, LI, LII and w are not in its region of rejection. So s, LI,
LII and the hypothesis H0 of w can all be accepted. In comparison with the measured
value, the confidence level of the area of cracks s, the length of crack (LI LII) and the
maximum width of cracks wmax is 0.95 which means the proposed method is effective and
reliable in identifying the characteristic parameters of concrete cracks.

5 Conclusion
By comparing the characteristic parameters of concrete cracks identified with image
processing method to the measured results, it can be concluded that:
(1) The digital image extraction method proposed in this research will effectively
avoid the determination of threshold value. Then this new method shows a higher
accuracy and efficiency by eliminating the misjudgment caused by threshold value
and simplifying the denoising process, especially in case of a low digital graphic
step difference between the background and concrete cracks.
(2) The early age cracks of concrete state very clear fractal properties. It is a good way
to represent the irregularity of concrete cracks with fractal principle. And the
fractal dimensions can be taken as a characteristic parameter to describe the
tortuosity of cracks.

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(3) In comparison with the traditional measuring method, this research put forward a
new algorithm in calculating the characteristic parameters of concrete cracks, such
as area, length and width, et al. The new method will significantly decrease the
working time and labor intensity at the measuring scene. At the same time, the new
method shows a higher accuracy in a broadened measuring range. The new method
will, undoubtedly, improve the quantitative identification of early age cracking of
concrete in accuracy, convenience, and efficiency.
Acknowledgements. The study of this paper is financially supported by National
Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 51008272 and 50838008) and Doctoral
Program of Higher Education (No. 20070335087).

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