A Fundamental civil engineering knowledge is the ability to understand, explain and calculate deformations of/in civil structures. New civil engineers acquire this knowledge at universities in material science, engineering mechanics and introduction to structural engineering modules. Structural deformations can be calculated when knowing material properties, geometry and boundary conditions of a structure and loads that are applied on/to it. Inverse engineering can be employed if deformations of a structure are known, but some other parameters are not known. Theoretical formulae are then tested using laboratory test beds, usually beams. Laboratory technicians are responsible for the acquisition of deformation measurements of laboratory tests. Their time is often limited and so is the number of available measurement collection devices such as dial gauges and strain gauges. If devices that do not log measured deformations are employed, information of structural deformations or response might be lost or readings might not be collected at required intervals. However, all laboratories do not offer luxury of sensors that are available at hand and technicians, which would have time to install sensors and collect data when needed, especially if this has to be done within a short period of notice. This paper introduces a low-cost vision-based system for deformation estimations of laboratory structures
