3D object retrieval by 3D curve matching

In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to 3D object retrieval by 3D curve matching. First, we project 2D object edges obtained from a depth image into 3D space. Second, we find distinctive feature points on the object. Third, we represent the shortest paths between the features by robust descriptors invariant to rotation, scaling, and translation. Finally, we match two 3D objects using the Maximum Weight Subgraph search. The most important contribution of this paper is the powerful object representation by 3D curves together with the corresponding matching algorithm. Excellent retrieval results achieved with our method show its benefits compared to the state-of-the-art.