Virtual environments for structural health monitoring

While thorough documentation has always been a crucial feature of life cycle monitoring and assessment, different forms of documentation have not always been well integrated. Thorough documentation can include 2D images, 3D models, architectural drawings, reports from past interventions, current monitoring data, among other elements. In life-cycle monitoring, it is important that all of these types of documentation are well integrated and organized. The work presented here reflects a methodology and digital workflow for organizing and integrating existing documentation and data about a structure into a virtual reality environment. Through presenting data about a structure in an intuitive, organized, and interactive way, a virtual environment will foster communication among different groups working on a project, and greatly help the engineers to quickly and comprehensively assess the condition of the structure. The virtual environment proposed here uses 360 degree spherical imaging (Ricoh Theta) and virtual environment software (Kolor Panotour Pro) to aid a user in virtually experiencing a structure accompanied by its associated data. This project was implemented on Streicker Bridge, a 350 foot pedestrian bridge, in Princeton, NJ, USA. Since construction began in 2009, this bridge has been monitored using fiber-optic strain sensors. This data is incorporated into the virtual environment to highlight the possibilities of this method for life-cycle management. The lessons learned will be recommendations for how virtual environments can be used to enhance current practices and visualization methods for long-term monitoring and assessment.