Shape description from imperfect and incomplete data

Usually, shape description systems assume that a scene has been segmented into objects and that object boundaries are given. This, however, is not realistic when working with intensity images; the resulting boundaries are fragmented and contain surface markings, and shadow and noise boundaries. A system is described which works with such input and computes shape descriptions of complex objects. Scene segmentation takes place through shape description. Generalized cones or, more precisely, their 2D analogs of ribbons are used as the basic shape representation scheme. Results for synthetic and real examples are shown. The output of the system is useful for object recognition, learning, further inference of 3D shape, grasping, and navigation