A labelled dataset for rebar counting inspection on construction sites using unmanned aerial vehicles

Accurate inspection of rebars in Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures is essential and requires careful counting. Deep learning algorithms utilizing object detection can facilitate this process through Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery. However, their effectiveness depends on the availability of large, diverse, and well-labelled datasets. This article details the creation of a dataset specifically for counting rebars using deep learning-based object detection methods. The dataset comprises 874 raw images, divided into three subsets: 524 images for training (60 %), 175 for validation (20 %), and 175 for testing (20 %). To enhance the training data, we applied eight augmentation techniques—brightness, contrast, perspective, rotation, scale, shearing, translation, and blurring—exclusively to the training subset. This resulted in nine distinct datasets: one for each augmentation technique and one combining all techniques in augmentation sets. Expert annotators labelled the dataset in VOC XML format. While this research focuses on rebar counting, the raw dataset can be adapted for other tasks, such as estimating rebar diameter or classifying rebar shapes, by providing the necessary annotations.