Nonlinear finite element methods for nonrigid motion analysis

Abstract

The motion of nonrigid or deformable bodies has been studied in the field of engineering mechanics and applied mathematics for years with great success. In computer vision, the application of engineering mechanics for 3D shape fitting and motion analysis is generally called utilizing deformable shape models or physically-based modeling (usually using linear FEM). Since many real-world materials behave non-linearly when they are subjected to large deformations, one cannot expect a linear FEM to be a good model of many materials undergoing large deformation. This severely restricts the applications of FEM in many nonrigid notion analysis problems. In this paper we propose the use of the nonlinear finite element modeling for the nonrigid motion analysis