A volumetric approach for interactive 3D modeling

Range image registration and surface reconstruction have been traditionally considered as two independent processes where the latter relies on the results of the former. This paper presents a new approach to surface recovery from range images where the two processes are unified and performed in a common volumetric representation. While the reconstructed surface is described in its implicit form as a signed distance field within a volume, registration information for matching partial surfaces is encoded in the same volume as the gradient of the distance field. This allows coupling of both reconstruction and registration and leads to an algorithm whose complexity is linear with respect to the number of images and the number of measured 3D points. The close integration and performance gain improve interactivity in the process of modeling from range image acquisition to surface reconstruction. The distances computed in the direction of filtered normals improve robustness while preserving the sharp details of the initial range images. It is shown that the integrated algorithm is tolerant to initial registration errors as well as to measurement errors. The paper describes the representation and formalizes the approach. Experimental results demonstrate performance advantages and tolerance to aforementioned types of errors. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.