Method and apparatus for obtaining photogrammetric data to estimate impact severity

An article comprising a machine-accessible storage medium including instructions that when executed cause a system to:

• receive a plurality of images of a vehicle involved in an accident and undergoing a computer-implemented impact severity analysis in the system;
• evaluate the plurality of images for pose estimate information and store a pose estimate for each of the plurality of images;
• refine the stored pose estimate for each of the plurality of images via a bundle adjustment;
• determine the location of damage points for the vehicle via triangulation using the plurality of images;
• generate a crush profile for the vehicle based on a difference between the location of damage points for the vehicle and corresponding points for a reference vehicle, the reference vehicle non-damaged and substantially similar to the vehicle;
• use the crush profile and a crush profile for a second vehicle involved in the accident to optimize an overlap of damage patterns on the first and second vehicles by comparison and alignment of the damage patterns on the first and second vehicles;
• determine estimates of a principal direction of force (PDOF) for the vehicle and the second vehicle based on the optimized overlap;
• and
• determine a final PDOF for the vehicle and the second vehicle based on an iterative adjustment of the PDOF estimates if the PDOF estimates are inconsistent, and store the final PDOFs in the system for later use.