Invariant Categorisation of Polygonal Objects using Multi-resolution Signatures

With the increasing use of 3D objects and models, mining of 3D databases is becoming an important issue. However, 3D object recognition is very time consuming because of variations due to position, rotation, size and mesh resolution. A fast categorisation can be used to discard non-similar objects, such that only few objects need to be compared in full detail. We present a simple method for characterising 3D objects with the goal of performing a fast similarity search in a set of polygonal mesh models. The method constructs, for each object, two sets of multi-scale signatures: (a) the progression of deformation due to iterative mesh smoothing and, similarly, (b) the influence of mesh dilation and erosion using a sphere with increasing radius. The signatures are invariant to 3D translation, rotation and scaling, also to mesh resolution because of proper normalisation. The method was validated on a set of 31 complex objects, each object being represented with three mesh resolutions. The results were measured in terms of Euclidian distance for ranking all objects, with an overall average ranking rate of 1.29

Retrieval of 3D polygonal objects based on multiresolution signatures

In this paper we present a method for retrieving 3D polygonal objects by using two sets of multiresolution signatures. Both sets are based on the progressive elimination of object's details by iterative processing of the 3D meshes. The first set, with five parameters, is based on mesh smoothing. This mainly affects an object's surface. The second set, with three parameters, is based on difference volumes after successive mesh erosions and dilations. Characteristic feature vectors are constructed by combining the features at three mesh resolutions of each object. In addition to being invariant to mesh resolution, the feature vectors are invariant to translation, rotation and size of the objects. The method was tested on a set of 40 complex objects with mesh resolutions different from those used in constructing the feature vectors. By using all eight features, the average ranking rate obtained was 1.075: 37 objects were ranked first and only 3 objects were ranked second. Additional tests were carried out to determine the significance of individual features and all combinations. The same ranking rate of 1.075 can be obtained by using some combinations of only three features. © 2011 Springer-Verlag