Not only size matters: Regularized partial matching of nonrigid shapes

Partial matching is probably one of the most challenging problems in nonrigid shape analysis. The problem consists of matching similar parts of shapes that are dissimilar on the whole and can assume different forms by undergoing nonrigid deformations. Conceptually, two shapes can be considered partially matching if they have significant similar parts, with the simplest definition of significance being the size of the parts. Thus, partial matching can be defined as a multicriterion optimization problem trying to simultaneously maximize the similarity and the size of these parts. In this paper, we propose a different definition of significance, taking into account the regularity of parts besides their size. The regularity term proposed here is similar to the spirit of the Mumford-Shah functional. Numerical experiments show that the regularized partial matching produces semantically better results compared to the non-regularized one.