A sketch-based query interface for 3D CAD model retrieval

A sketch-based query interface is proposed for retrieving 3D CAD models. The maximum distribution of normal vectors of a 3D model is computed to assist the PCA algorithm to normalize the pose of the 3D model, and then the outline views of the 3D model can be coordinated with the freehand sketches submitted by users. To retrieve the 3D models similar with the user sketches, an image similarity assessment algorithm is employed to compare the shape similarity between user sketches and the outline views of 3D models. Experiments demonstrate that users can express the query shape through the proposed query interface rapidly and the retrieval performance is satisfactory.