3D Shape Registration

egistration is the problem of bringing together two or more 3D shapes, either of the same object or of two different but similar objects. This chapter first introduces the classical Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm, which represents the gold standard registration method. Current limitations of ICP are addressed and the most popular variants are described to improve the basic implementation in several ways. Challenging registration scenarios are analyzed and a taxonomy of recent and promising alternative registration techniques is introduced. Three case studies are then described with an increasing level of problem difficulty. The first case study describes a simple but effective technique to detect outliers. The second case study uses the Levenberg-Marquardt optimization procedure to solve standard pairwise registration. The third case study focuses on the challenging problem of deformable object registration. Finally, open issues and directions for future work are discussed and conclusions are drawn.