Surface parameterization for smooth 3D shapes

In this work we present a new method for compacting data from 3D shapes by extracting a 3D characteristic curve that we call a 3D signature. The 3D signature obtained preserves almost all the morphological shape information but drastically reduces the number of points required for representing the shape. Furthermore, based on the 3D signature, we present a 2D signature that draws a closed contour in a plane and that can be further compacted using elliptic Fourier descriptors. The method was developed to work with a 3D otolith database that is currently under construction.