Representation of range data with B-spline surface patches

Presents an implementation of deformable models for approximation of 3-D surfaces. It is an extension of work on B-snakes (Menet, Saint-Marc, and Gerard (1990), which approximate curves using B-splines. The user provides an initial simple surface, such as a cylinder or a plane, which is subject to internal forces and external forces which attracts it toward features. The problem is cast in terms of energy minimization, and is solved iteratively. The authors choice of basis functions leads to reasonable complexity and good numerical stability. The authors give results on real range images to illustrate the applicability of their approach. The advantages of this approach are that it provides a compact representation of the approximated data, it gives a C₁ continuous analytical description of the data, which allows computation of differential properties, and lends itself to applications such as non-rigid motion tacking and object recognition