Generating Models of Solid Objects by Matching 3D Surface Segments

Abstract

This paper summarizes a method for constructing surface models of arbitrarily-shaped, solid objects by spatially matching 3D surface segments describing the objects. A surface segment of a solid object is a partial description of the object's surface, usually limited to the surface area that can be reconstructed from two corresponding images of the object in an arbitrary orientation. Each surface segment is defined in its 3D coordinate system. The matching algorithm uses heuristic search to align overlapping surface segments of an object into a common 3D coordinate system . It searches for a rigid 3D transformation which minimizes shape differences between a pair of surface segments. Once this transformation is determined, the surface segments are merged into a new segment. This match-and-merge process is iteratively repeated for pairs of available surface segments until a complete model of the object is assembled .