Earthquake Damage Has Been Captured for the First Time in 360 Degrees in Turkey

For the first time in Turkey, after Van Earthquake, a disaster area has been captured in ‘360 degree’ with special cameras. Images are digitized with Netcad software in the scope of ABIS (Disaster Information System) Project.

A two-person team of experts, a special system with 8 cameras mounted on a vehicle have captured the 360 degrees images of the disaster area where 7.2 destructive magnitudes struck on 23 th November, 2011.

These images were analyzed in the scope of ABIS Project, operated by AFAD (Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency) in collaboration with Netcad, and guide the rest of the studies.

These 360 images processed with a special 500 cored super-computer and were used for preliminary damage assessment studies. So, damage assessments were completed faster by the responsible institutions and disaster aid delivered to the territory were determined more affectively including the compensations to be paid to the owners.

All the possibilities of today’s modern technology are used, to determine the damages precisely and making aid plans in a more affective and coordinated way after the Van Earthquake. Introduced for the first time in Turkey, speed and effectiveness of the Disaster Management processes are increased, with the project.

All disaster data are collected in a fast and healthy way, transferred to the center, and inter-agency coordination is provided with the“Disaster Information System”(ABIS)project, operated by Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency(AFAD)in collaboration withNetcadsoftware. The project aims to trace the housing needs in a most healthy way and prevent any coordination problem during the aid delivery by accelerating the damage assessment and planned intervention processes.  It also aims to determine the amount of compensation to be paid to the rights owners by arranging the damage assessment reports in the healthiest way.

In this manner, a two-person team of experts involved an extensive study at the Centrum of Van City and Erciş City for three days between 3thand 5thof November. They captured images of the disaster area in 360 degrees with a special system having 8 cameras equipped with special lenses.Details of the System

It can collect data even traveling by 60 km/h speed by using the enhanced camera and positioning device mounted on the vehicle. It is possible to collect the data ten times faster than the classical methods. There are 8 different 32 Megapixels cameras positioned four at top and four at bottom. They can collect stereo panoramic images in a way of 8 million 3D dots in an image or 24 million 3D dots in a second. High definitional and geo-referenced images or videos can be captured by Ladybug cameras with 5 lenses or Immersive Media cameras with 11 lenses. It is possible to collect the data in 2 cm sensitivity with integrated Geodesic GPSs and IMU systems. These images can be used with maps by Netcad’s Netgis|Server 360Pro solution. It also allows you to make measurements on them online. Digitization, layer overlay and attribute entry are also possible with Netcad/360Pro desktop solution within the same environment.

AFAD plans to expand the project across the country

Head of Department for Planning and Mitigation of Prime Ministry AFAD, Turan Erkoç said in his statement; it is possible to reach higher details with 360 photographs rather than the satellite imagery and faster scanning periods for the damage assessments are also achieved.

Erkoç also stated; we pushed the button to use the 360 degrees image acquiring technology as a part of the ABİS Project in addition to the satellite imagery. Thanks to it, we determined the degree of the disaster impact faster and arranged  more efficient emergency plans in shorter time. It was the first time as a pilot at Van and Erciş.

We aim with this R & D study, intended to gather building’s damage data faster than before to ensure that the necessary measures and precautions are taken earlier. Erkoç; this system is not only to acquire images from the post-disaster; we are planning to enable it for the determination of the disaster hazards and risks for all the provinces, achieve advantages of the urban information system, ensure that the implementation of the emergency plans are more comfortable and effective as the result.

About the ABIS Project

ABIS (Disaster Information System) is designed to give ability for executing the processes regarding the disasters that have been happened or are likely to be happen and constituted within the authorization and responsibility of Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency. It also covers the infrastructure for storing the data about the past and further disasters and making them available for querying.

In the project, all operations of the institution were analyzed and processes were listed. All software tools were developed according to these operations and processes. Institution started making their regular duties and collecting the reports automatically from the system by using these tools only. Turkish National Disaster Archive (TUAA) was also installed during the project. It helps the institution to reach any relevant information regarding the natural or technological disasters, affected the country, in compatible with the disaster archive criteria.

Achievements of the project:ABIS is collecting all the data in a center before and after the disaster.Disaster-victims are being identified with ABIS.All planned processes are being managed with ABIS.Geological studies are being realized with ABIS. Earthquake-sensitive residential areas are being determined with ABIS.The in-house coordination and communication has been functioning more healthy and efficient with ABIS.Instant sharing of the documentations, brochures, information and visuals regarding the disasters and making statistical queries got possible with TUAA. Other academicians, institutions and also public got the ability to access these data.

It keeps coordination with ‘International Charter Space Service’ which provides data in international standards.