3-D Modeling from a Single Sketch Image Using Genetic Algorithms

This article presents a method for constructing a surface model automatically from a single sketch image. The sketch image must be drawn on a paper based on some rules of industrial design. First, the sketch image is digitized by a scanner and a contour image is found by preprocessing. 2-D corners are detected from the contour image and 3-D coordinates of each corner are inferred as vertices of an object. Next, an adequate wire-frame model is constructed using cubic BCzier curves by moving each inferred vertex to an optimum location; the shape of the wire-frame model is optimized using genetic algorithms(GA) so that the projection of the wire-frame model coincides with the contour image. Finally, a surface model is constructed using bicubic BCzier surfaces by interpolating the wire-frame model.