Object and image indexing based on region connection calculus and oriented matroid theory

In this paper a novel method for indexing views of 3D objects is presented. The topological properties of the regions of views of an object or of a set of objects are used to define an index based on region connection calculus and oriented matroid theory. Both are formalisms for qualitative spatial representation and reasoning and are complementary in the sense that, whereas region connection calculus characterize connectivity of couples of connected regions of views, oriented matroids encode relative position of disjoint regions of views and give local and global topological information about their spatial distribution. This indexing technique has been applied to hypothesis generation from a single view to reduce the number of candidates in 3D object recognition processes.