Shape Segmentation and Matching from Noisy Point Clouds

We present the implementation results of a shape segmentation technique and an associated shape matching method whose input is a point sample from the shape. The sample is allowed to be noisy in the sense that they may scatter around the boundary of the shape instead of lying exactly on it. The algorithm is simple and mostly combinatorial in that it builds a single data structure, the Delaunay triangulation of the point set, and groups the tetrahedra to form the segments. A small set of weighted points are derived from the segments which are used as signatures to match shapes. Experimental results establish the effectiveness of the method in practice.