Shape matching and modeling using skeletal context

Shape is a significant visual clue for human perception and shape models show considerable promise as a basis for extracting objects from images. This paper proposes a novel approach for shape matching and modeling using the symmetry characterization of shape interior and the spatial relationships of shape structures. Based on the representative skeletal features, we develop a mechanism to generate a coarse segment matching between different instances of an object. Additionally, the natural correspondence of skeletal branches to sequential segments along the shape curves is employed in the matching process to avoid false correspondences across different segments. Point matches within the corresponding segments are then obtained by solving a constrained assignment problem. The validation of the proposed approach is illustrated on various data sets in the presence of considerable deformation and occlusion and the results are compared with those of popular approaches. We also demonstrate the performance of our method on biological objects for shape modeling, showing better models than those obtained by the state-of-the-art shape modeling approaches.