Matching of 3-D curves using semi-differential invariants

A method for matching 3-D curves under Euclidean motions is presented. Our approach uses a semi-differential invariant description requiring only first derivatives and one reference point, thus avoiding the computation of high order derivatives. A novel curve similarity measure building on the notion of /spl epsiv/-reciprocal correspondence is proposed. It is shown that by combining /spl epsiv/-reciprocal correspondence with the robust least median of squares motion estimation, the registration of partially occluded curves can be accomplished. An experiment with real curves extracted from 3-D surfaces demonstrates that curve matching can be successfully performed even on data from a simple and cheap 3-D sensor.