3D Deformable Hand Models

We are interested in producing a 3D deformable model of the human hand, for use in a tracking application. Statistical methods can be used to build such a model from a set of training examples; however, a key requirement for this is the collection of landmark coordinate data from these training examples. To produce a good model, hundreds of landmarks are required from each example; collecting this data manually is infeasible. We present a method for capturing landmark data which makes use of standard physically-based models. The process is semi-automatic { key features are located by hand, and a physical model is deformed under the action of various forces to t the image data. We demonstrate how the technique can be used to build a 3D Point Distribution Model from 3D MRI data, using a Simplex Mesh.