New Algorithms for 2D and 3D Point Matching: Pose Estimation and Correspondence

A fundamental open problem in computer vision-determining pose and correspondence between two sets of points in spaceis solved with a novel, robust and easily implementable algorithm. The technique works on noisy point sets that may be of unequal sizes and may differ by non-rigid transformations. A 2D variation calculates the pose between point sets related by an affine transformation-translation, rotation, scale and shear. A 3D to 3D variation calculates translation and rotation . An objective describing the problem is derived from Mean field theory. The objective is minimized with clocked (EM-like) dynamics. Experiments with both handwritten and synthetic data provide empirical evidence for the method.