Improving marine growth estimates using 3D photogrammetry

Offshore infrastructure (e.g. oil and gas and renewables) is rapidly colonised by a diverse range of epifauna/flora, collectively termed ‘marine growth’. The nature and extent of marine growth has engineering consequences for infrastructure, through early-stage-operational to decommissioning phases, and contributes to the ecological interactions of infrastructure with the receiving environment. This project will address the current challenge faced by industry and regulators to accurately monitor and assess the mass, volume and surface roughness of marine growth on infrastructure. Our objective is assess the feasibility of generating 3-dimensional (3D) images of marine growth using standard industry ROV video inspection footage, and using these images to accurately quantify the nature (community type, surface roughness) and extent (volume and mass) of marine growth. The 3D images will be generated using ‘3D structure–from-motion-photogrammetry (SfMP)’ techniques.