8 Pose Estimation of Multi - Part Curved Objects

Recognizing 3-D objects from a 2-D image is important for many visual tasks. Part of this problem is the estimation of the 3-D pose of the viewed objects. Alignment, introduced by [134], is a very attractive method since it is simple and efficient. Most objects demonstrated under the alignment technique are those for which low-level image features can be identified and matched with model features. These include polyhedra and objects with sharp corners or distinguished lines. Dealing with complex, curved, objects is more difficult because no such low-level features may be identifiable. This is due to the possible view-dependency of the outlines which may vary wildly with changes in viewpoint and thus are hard to match with object models.