Landmark Sliding for 3 D Shape Correspondence

Shape correspondence, which aims at accurately identifying corresponding landmarks from a given population of shape instances, is a very challenging step in constructing a statistical shape model such as the Point Distribution Model. Many shape correspondence methods are primarily focused on closedsurface shape correspondence. The authors of this chapter discuss the 3D Landmark Sliding method of shape correspondence, which is able to identify accurately corresponding landmarks on 3D closedsurfaces and open-surfaces (Dalal 2007, 2009). In particular, they introduce a shape correspondence measure based on Thin-plate splines and the concept of explicit topology consistency on the identified landmarks to ensure that they form a simple, consistent triangle mesh to more accurately model the correspondence of the underlying continuous shape instances. The authors also discuss issues such as correspondence of boundary landmarks for open-surface shapes and different strategies to obtain an initial estimate of correspondence before performing landmark sliding.