Toward a Surface Primal Sketch

Abstract

This paper reports progress toward the development of a representation of significant surface changes in dense depth maps. We call the representation the Surface Primal Sketch by analogy with representation of intensity changes, image structure, and changes in curvature of planar curves. We describe an implemented program that detects, localizes, and symbolically describes: steps, where the surface height function is discontinuous; roofs, where the surface is continuous but the surface normal is discontinuous; smooth joins, where the surface normal is continuous but a principle curvature is discontinuous and changes sign; and shoulders, which consists of two roofs and correspond to a step viewed obliquely. We illustrate the performance of the program on range maps of objects of varying complexity.