APPLICATION OF DIGITAL IMAGE TECHNOLOGY FOR DETERMINING GEOMETRY, STRATIGRAPHY, AND POSITION OF CRACKS INSIDE EARTH SLOPE

Abstract

In the concept of cracked soils, one of the important factors for determining slope stability is
the position of cracks. The position of cracks has been successfully obtained by other study using geoelectric
testing. The geoelectric data produces several colors that describe the conditions of the slope geometry, soil
stratigraphy, and the position of the cracks inside the slope. In order to improve the accuracy of reading
geoelectric data for slope stability analysis, a digital image processing technique is proposed here. This digital
image technology is applied by means of an auxiliary program based on the graphical user interface (GUI) that
exists inside the MATLAB m-files and utilizing the option of RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color formats. With
this technique, geoelectric data retrieval will take place automatically, thus it can be directly used as input for
the slope stability analysis program to determine the value of the slope safety factor. The image processing
technique in this study is based on using a straight-line equation to detect slope geometry, soil stratigraphy,
and the position of cracks on slopes based on the geoelectric data. The simulation results in this study provide
sufficiently accurate values of geoelectric data retrieval, which is to reach 5.78 cm/pixel. The larger the pixel
size of the processed slope image, the higher the accuracy of the program outcomes. The results of this study
will be later used for input in the new slope stability analysis based on cracked soil approaches utilizing digital
image technology.