To achieve geometric reconstruction from 3D datasets two complementary appr
oaches have been widely used. On one hand, the deformable model framework l
ocally applies forces to fit the data. On the other hand, the non-rigid reg
istration framework computes a global transformation minimizing the distanc
e between a template and the data. We first show that applying a global tra
nsformation on a surface template, is equivalent to applying certain global
forces on a deformable model. Second, we propose a scheme which combines t
he registration and free-form deformation. This globally constrained deform
ation scheme allows us to control the amount of deformation from the refere
nce shape with a single parameter. Finally, we propose a general algorithm
for performing model-based reconstruction in a robust and accurate manner.
Examples on both range data and medical images are used to illustrate and v
alidate the globally constrained deformation framework. (C) 1998 Elsevier S
cience B.V. All rights reserved.