Applications of Conformal Geometric Algebra in Computer Vision and Graphics

Abstract. This paper introduces the mathematical framework of con-formal geometric algebra (CGA) as a language for computer graphics and computer vision. Specifically it discusses a new method for pose and position interpolation based on CGA which firstly allows for existing interpolation methods to be cleanly extended to pose and position in-terpolation, but also allows for this to be extended to higher-dimension spaces and all conformal transforms (including dilations). In addition, we discuss a method of dealing with conics in CGA and the intersection and reflections of rays with such conic surfaces. Possible applications for these algorithms are also discussed.

Spectral Generalized Multi-Dimensional Scaling

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a family of methods that embed a given set of points into a simple, usually flat, domain. The points are assumed to be sampled from some metric space, and the mapping attempts to preserve the distances between each pair of points in the set. Distances in the target space can be computed analytically in this setting. Generalized MDS is an extension that allows mapping one metric space into another, that is, multidimensional scaling into target spaces in which distances are evaluated numerically rather than analytically. Here, we propose an efficient approach for computing such mappings between surfaces based on their natural spectral decomposition, where the surfaces are treated as sampled metric-spaces. The resulting spectral-GMDS procedure enables efficient embedding by implicitly incorporating smoothness of the mapping into the problem, thereby substantially reducing the complexity involved in its solution while practically overcoming its non-convex nature. The method is compared to existing techniques that compute dense correspondence between shapes. Numerical experiments of the proposed method demonstrate its efficiency and accuracy compared to state-of-the-art approaches

The Twist Representation of Shape

We give a contribution to the representation problem of free-form curves and surfaces. Our proposal is an operational or kinematic approach based on the Lie group SE(3). While in Euclidean space the modelling of shape as orbit of a point under the action of SE(3) is limited, we are embedding our problem into the conformal geometric algebra R_4,1 of the Euclidean space R^3. This embedding results in a number of advantages which makes the proposed method a universal and flexible one with respect to applications. Especially advantagous is the equivalence of the proposed shape model to that of the Fourier representations