16 research outputs found
On the optimality of shape and data representation in the spectral domain
A proof of the optimality of the eigenfunctions of the Laplace-Beltrami
operator (LBO) in representing smooth functions on surfaces is provided and
adapted to the field of applied shape and data analysis. It is based on the
Courant-Fischer min-max principle adapted to our case. % The theorem we present
supports the new trend in geometry processing of treating geometric structures
by using their projection onto the leading eigenfunctions of the decomposition
of the LBO. Utilisation of this result can be used for constructing numerically
efficient algorithms to process shapes in their spectrum. We review a couple of
applications as possible practical usage cases of the proposed optimality
criteria. % We refer to a scale invariant metric, which is also invariant to
bending of the manifold. This novel pseudo-metric allows constructing an LBO by
which a scale invariant eigenspace on the surface is defined. We demonstrate
the efficiency of an intermediate metric, defined as an interpolation between
the scale invariant and the regular one, in representing geometric structures
while capturing both coarse and fine details. Next, we review a numerical
acceleration technique for classical scaling, a member of a family of
flattening methods known as multidimensional scaling (MDS). There, the
optimality is exploited to efficiently approximate all geodesic distances
between pairs of points on a given surface, and thereby match and compare
between almost isometric surfaces. Finally, we revisit the classical principal
component analysis (PCA) definition by coupling its variational form with a
Dirichlet energy on the data manifold. By pairing the PCA with the LBO we can
handle cases that go beyond the scope defined by the observation set that is
handled by regular PCA
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
Graph matching: relax or not?
We consider the problem of exact and inexact matching of weighted undirected
graphs, in which a bijective correspondence is sought to minimize a quadratic
weight disagreement. This computationally challenging problem is often relaxed
as a convex quadratic program, in which the space of permutations is replaced
by the space of doubly-stochastic matrices. However, the applicability of such
a relaxation is poorly understood. We define a broad class of friendly graphs
characterized by an easily verifiable spectral property. We prove that for
friendly graphs, the convex relaxation is guaranteed to find the exact
isomorphism or certify its inexistence. This result is further extended to
approximately isomorphic graphs, for which we develop an explicit bound on the
amount of weight disagreement under which the relaxation is guaranteed to find
the globally optimal approximate isomorphism. We also show that in many cases,
the graph matching problem can be further harmlessly relaxed to a convex
quadratic program with only n separable linear equality constraints, which is
substantially more efficient than the standard relaxation involving 2n equality
and n^2 inequality constraints. Finally, we show that our results are still
valid for unfriendly graphs if additional information in the form of seeds or
attributes is allowed, with the latter satisfying an easy to verify spectral
characteristic