Displacement is crucial for structural health monitoring, although it is very challenging to measure under field conditions. Most existing displacement measurement methods are costly, labor-intensive, and insufficiently accurate for measuring small dynamic displacements. Computer vision (CV)-based methods incorporate optical devices with advanced image processing algorithms to accurately, cost-effectively, and remotely measure structural displacement with easy installation. However, non-target-based CV methods are still limited by insufficient feature points, incorrect feature point detection, occlusion, and drift induced by tracking error accumulation. This paper presents a reference frame-based Deepflow algorithm integrated with masking and signal filtering for non-target-based displacement measurements. The proposed method allows the user to select points of interest for images with a low gradient for displacement tracking and directly calculate displacement without drift accumulated by measurement error. The proposed method is experimentally validated on a cantilevered beam under ambient and occluded test conditions. The accuracy of the proposed method is compared with that of a reference laser displacement sensor for validation. The significant advantage of the proposed method is its flexibility in extracting structural displacement in any region on structures that do not have distinct natural features.
Keywords: computer vision; deepflow; non-target-based structural displacement; optical flow; structural displacement measurement.