Merging multiple views using a spherical representation

This paper proposes a new method for building a 3-D model from a set of range images. The method can merge data of free-form surfaces obtained from arbitrary viewing directions, with no prior knowledge of the poses. Our approach is based on matching the spherical representations of an object between the views. To obtain the spherical representation, we deform a discrete mesh to fit the object surface. A variation of the Gaussian curvature metric, which we call simplex angle, is computed at each node on the deformed mesh and mapped to a coordinate on the unit sphere. The transformation of the objects is computed by comparing the simplex angle measure at each node on the unit sphere. The transformation which produces the minimum errors is selected as the best match. We have implemented this method, applied the method to range images of objects from arbitrary viewpoints, and demonstrated the applicability for modeling from observation