Determining Pedestrian Crash Impact Location from Video Using PhotoModeler
2022-01-0994
03/29/2022
- Event
- Content
- With the increasing popularity of dash cams combined with the ever-growing presence of traffic and surveillance cameras, the chance that a pedestrian-involved collision being captured on some form of video evidence is high. Pedestrian-involved crashes are on the rise across the United States and now, more than ever, crash investigators need every available tool to properly document and reconstruct a pedestrian crash. With the question of “how fast was the driver going” looming in nearly every fatal crash, the investigator will need to accurately and reliably determine the location of impact to successfully determine reasonable speed estimates. When the impact of the crash is documented on video, the location of the pedestrian at, or near, the impact can be documented using photogrammetry. This paper serves to illustrate the process by which PhotoModeler ® Standard can be used to determine the pedestrian’s location at impact using the inverse camera feature and extracted still frames from the video with a high degree of accuracy. The research conducted shows that when an investigator can identify control points that are visible at the scene that is also visible in the video, PhotoModeler’s inverse camera function can be used to solve for the unknown camera frame image, allowing the investigator to identify the surface of the roadway in the video, and then mark the pedestrian’s location prior to impact on the created surface. While the research has focused on the pedestrian’s position at impact, the same methods could be used to identify the pedestrian’s point of ground landing, final rest, or where other items of evidentiary value landed after impact took place.
- Citation
- Mullinax, B., "Determining Pedestrian Crash Impact Location from Video Using PhotoModeler," SAE Technical Paper 2022-01-0994, 2022, .