Geodesic Connected Graph Representation of 3D Prismatic CAD Models

A novel local shape descriptor, geodesic connected graph, is proposed for the representation of three-dimensional (3D) prismatic CAD model represented by triangle meshes. First, the model is segmented using the extended Gaussian image. Second, the segmented areas which are visual from certain direction are connected by geodesic lines. Finally, a geodesic connected graph of feature areas is constructed according to the path of these geodesic lines. The geodesic connected graph is a shape descriptor of local features on model surfaces, and can be used in several CAD model analysis tasks, e.g. reverse engineering, manufacturing feature recognition, and model retrieval. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective for 3D CAD model retrieval.