This article presents a geometric fusion algorithm developed for the recons
truction of 3D surface models from hand-held sensor data. Hand-held systems
allow full 3D movement of the sensor to capture the shape of complex objec
ts. Techniques previously developed for reconstruction from conventional 2.
5D range image data cannot be applied to hand-held sensor data. A geometric
fusion algorithm is introduced to integrate the measured 3D points from a
handheld sensor into a single continuous surface. The new geometric fusion
algorithm is based on the normal-volume representation of a triangle, which
enables incremental transformation of an arbitrary mesh into an implicit v
olumetric field function. This system is demonstrated for reconstruction of
surface models from both hand-held sensor data and conventional 2.5D range
images.