Landmark Sliding for 3D Shape Correspondence

Abstract

Shape correspondence, which aims at accurately identifying corresponding landmarks from a given population of shape instances, is a very challenging step in constructing a statistical shape model such as the Point Distribution Model. Many shape correspondence methods are primarily focused on closed-surface shape correspondence. The authors of this chapter discuss the 3D Landmark Sliding method of shape correspondence, which is able to identify accurately corresponding landmarks on 3D closed-surfaces and open-surfaces (Dalal 2007, 2009). In particular, they introduce a shape correspondence measure based on Thin-plate splines and the concept of explicit topology consistency on the identified landmarks to ensure that they form a simple, consistent triangle mesh to more accurately model the correspondence of the underlying continuous shape instances. The authors also discuss issues such as correspondence of boundary landmarks for open-surface shapes and different strategies to obtain an initial estimate of correspondence before performing landmark sliding.