Appearance-model-based representation and matching of 3-D objects

A model-based technique is presented for recognizing 3-D objects using a novel object representation and a novel generic matching engine. Each object to be recognized is defined by an appearance model (AM) describing the expected appearances of the object over a range of aspects in a specific type of imagery. The AMs for all the objects to be recognized are organized in an AM hierarchy (AMH) defining object classes. This AMH, together with an image event extracted from the input imagery and primitives obtained by decomposing the event, constitute the input to the matching engine. This engine determines which object in the AMH most likely corresponds to the event and its primitives. The approach described is at the heart of an automatic target recognition system built by the authors