3D PART SEGMENTATION USING SIMULATED ELECTRICAL CHARGE-DISTRIBUTIONS

A novel approach to 3D part segmentation is presented. It is a well-kn own physical fact that electrical charge on the surface of a conductor tends to accumulate at a sharp convexity and vanish at a sharp concav ity. Thus, object part boundaries, which are usually denoted by a shar p surface concavity, can be detected by simulating the electrical char ge density over the object surface and locating surface points which e xhibit local charge density minima. Beginning with single-or multi-vie w range data of a 3D object, we simulate the charge density distributi on over an object's surface which has been tessellated by a triangular mesh. We detect the deep surface concavities by tracing local charge density minima and then decompose the object into parts at these point s. The charge density computation does not require an assumption on su rface smoothness and uses weighted global data to produce robust local surface features for part segmentation.