Globally constrained deformable models for 3D object reconstruction

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.