Recovery of hierarchical part structure of 3-D shape from range image

A formulation of the part decomposition problem motived by the minimum-description-length (MDL) criteria is presented. Unlike previous MDL approaches which use analytic functions, a general geometric constraint, convexity, is used as a part constraint. Therefore, the method is suitable for complex natural shapes such as human faces. The recovery process consists of a bottom-up grouping process and a subsequent optimization process based on the MDL criteria. The definite causal relations of part structure between different sensitivity levels are used to recover the hierarchy of part structure. Part decomposition experiments involving real 3-D range images are reported.<>