REPRESENTATION, PROCESSING, ANALYSIS,

AND UNDERSTANDING OF IMAGES

An Algorithm for Calculating the Similarity Measures

of Surfaces Represented as Point Clouds
N. F. Dyshkant
Moscow State University, Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics,
Leninskie gory, Moscow, 119991 Russia
email: Natalia.Dyshkant@gmail.com

Abstract—The problem of estimating the similarity of surfaces represented as point clouds is studied. An
approach is suggested to the comparison of such surfaces based on the surface approximation by piecewise
linear functions of two variables in the Delaunay triangulations. The approach is based on the developed algo
rithm for comparison of the functions of two variables specified on various irregular sets of points. Possible
applications of this algorithm were considered such as the problems of 3D portraits comparison, e.g., prob
lems of estimation of facial asymmetry and dynamics of lower jaw movements on the basis of a 3D video
sequence of models. The performed experiments confirmed the correctness, validity, and computational effi
ciency of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Surface comparison, pointwise surface description, irregular meshes, mesh location in triangula
tion, 3D face comparison.
DOI: 10.1134/S1054661810040103

INTRODUCTION faces, each of which is defined on its own set of points,

Any spatial object has a certain geometric shape.
The problems of comparison, recognition, and analy
sis of such objects require the description of a strict
mathematical model of this shape. The shape of an
object can be treated as a set of surfaces, each of which
is uniquely projectable onto a plane. In this work the
problem of the comparison of such surfaces is studied.
For complex nonsmooth surfaces, the method of
pointwise description is often used where the surface is
represented by a discrete point cloud belonging to it.
Such discrete surface models can be obtained, for
instance, by the methods of 3D scanning rapidly gain
ing popularity. At the same time, the projection of an
initial point cloud created by the scanner onto a plane
usually has an uneven structure and is an irregular
plane mesh. A surface uniquely projectable onto a
plane can be treated as an explicit function of two vari
ables z = f(x, y) defined on a discrete set of points.
The rapid development of 3D scanning technolo
gies brings about the problems of improving the algo
rithms for the analysis, comparison, and classification
of the obtained surfaces. The applications require
exact and computationally efficient algorithms for the
calculation of the surface similarity measures because
the reconstruction of a surface configuration based on
its separate fragments and the classification of surfaces
are problems requiring algorithms for their compari
son. In particular, it is often necessary to compare sur
Received September 7, 2009
i.e., on different irregular meshes.
Most of the existing methods for the comparison of
object surfaces assume that for every point of the same
surface there is a corresponding point on the other one
(e.g., [10]). This implies either the continuous repre
sentation of the surface or defining the surface on a set
of points with a regular structure (regular mesh). In
this case, it is possible to calculate directly the Euclid
ean distance between the pairs of neighboring points,
the average distance between the surfaces, or any other
comparison measure. Some other methods where the
surfaces are initially defined on irregular sets use the
regularization of meshes.
It seems a topical problem to work out a computa
tionally efficient algorithm for the comparison of sur
faces defined by the functions of two variables on dif
ferent irregular meshes, i.e., in such cases when it
appears impossible to calculate directly the difference
between the functions. Here, the solution of this prob
lem is proposed retaining the initial irregularity.
The issue of constructing similarity measures for
the comparison of a given object with a sample arises
in the problems of computer vision, in biometric iden
tification and verification (e.g., using a 3D face model)
and in different medical applications.
Here, an approach is proposed based on the local
ization of the Delaunay triangulation of every set
inside each other using spanning trees and on the con
struction of the general Delaunay triangulation on the
basis of the union of two discrete sets. Since the proce
dure of the merging of nondivided triangulations can
be performed over a linear time [18], the total operat

ISSN 10546618, Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, 2010, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 495–504. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2010.
496
Fig. 1. Regular (on the left) and irregular (on the right) tri
angular meshes.
ing time of the proposed method is asymptotically
comparable with the construction time of the
Delaunay triangulation; i.e., it equals O(NlogN)
where N is the total number of points in two sets.
Therefore, the advantage and novelty of this method
consists in making it possible to avoid quadratic back
tracking when comparing surfaces.
As surface dissimilarity measures, it is proposed to
use the volume of the space between triangular meshes
(metric L1) or the average axial spacing between them.
The paper consists of an introduction, four sec
tions, and the conclusions. The first section presents a
survey of the methods for surface comparison and a
statement of the problem of the comparison of surface
patches uniquely projectable onto the plane, and
introduces the similarity and dissimilarity measures of
surfaces. In the second section, the structure of the
suggested algorithm for the calculation of the similar
ity measure is presented with a detailed description of
every stage, and the computational complexity of the
algorithm is estimated. In the third section, the appli
cation of the proposed measure is considered for sev
eral problems involving the analysis of 3D face mod
els. The fourth section presents the results of several
computational experiments.
1. SURFACE SIMILARITY MEASURES
1.1. Surface Comparison: Survey of the Literature
There are several approaches to the problem of sur
face comparison. In many algorithms the initial irreg
ular meshes are regularized at the first stage to obtain a
general regular mesh (see Fig.1), which is followed by
the calculation of the surface dissimilarity measure.
Most methods require a significant amount of compu
tation to secure an acceptable accuracy of computer
vision systems. At the stage of the irregular mesh regu
larization, the surface approximation accuracy is lost
and, in addition, the problem arises of selection of the
optimum mesh size. We propose a method for surface
comparison retaining the initial irregular meshes.
Some existing approaches to surface comparison
involve the initial continuous representation of the
surface [10] or its definition on a regular mesh. Mak
ing use of curvature maps is based on isoline contour
ing in the vicinity of certain surface points followed by
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS
DYSHKANT
the surface comparison with the help of these maps
[9]. The idea of the PCA (Principal Component Anal
ysis) method consists in the resolution of the surface
mapping vectors in the system of eigenvectors corre
sponding to the highest eigenvalues [11]. There are
methods for surface comparison based on the template
or pattern matching or attribute description; for
instance, in [7] the problem of object comparison is
reduced to the problem of comparing graphs, the ver
tices of which represent information about the sepa
rate fragments of the object surface, and the edges
reflect the information about the connectivity of these
fragments.
In [12] and [13] the problem was studied of com
paring the surfaces defined on different sets of points;
at the same time, the distance from the point on one
surface to another one is calculated along the normal
to the nearest spline of the second surface. The com
parison measure based on calculating the difference of
the distances along the normals is of interest because it
does not require the reduction of the compared func
tions to the general mesh.
1.2. Problem Statement
The surface obtained by a 3D scanning is repre
sented as a point cloud, which can be interpreted as a
singlevalued function of two variables defined on a
certain discrete set, i.e., on a mesh.
Definition. By an irregular twodimensional mesh G
a finite set of points will be understood from the space
R2: G = {(xi, yi)|i = 1, …, N}, N ≥ 3.
The following problem statement is considered.
N1 N2
i i i i
Let G1 = { ( x 1, y 1 ) } i = 1 and G2 = { ( x 2, y 2 ) } i = 1 be
irregular twodimensional meshes. Let F1 and F2 be
the mesh functions defined on the meshes G1 and G2,
i N1 i i i
respectively, F1 = { f 1 } i = 1 , f 1 = F1( x 1 , y 1 ), F2 =
i N2 i i i
{ f 2 } i = 1 , f 2 = F2( x 2 , y 2 ).
It is required to introduce a similarity measure for
the surfaces defined by such mesh functions and
develop an algorithm for its calculation.
Definition. The surface is called monotonic with
respect to a certain axis if any straight line parallel to
this axis crosses the surface at a single point at most.
Let R be a rectangle in the space R2, within which
there are meshes G1 and G2 (the enveloping rectangle of
the convex hull of the merging of two meshes). μ(x, y)
is the function defining the weight of different frag
ments of the surfaces being compared from the view
point of their similarity.
Let Ᏻ be a set of irregular twodimensional meshes
contained in R, and let Ᏺ be a set of singlevalued
functions defined on the meshes from the set Ᏻ.
Let Conv(G) be a convex hull of the set G, F1, F2 ∈
Ᏻ. Consider the continuous functions Fˆ 1 and Fˆ 2
Vol. 20 No. 4 2010
 AN ALGORITHM FOR CALCULATING THE SIMILARITY MEASURES
approximating F1, F2, respectively, so that Fˆ 1 ≡ F1 on
the set G1 and Fˆ 2 ≡ F2 on the set G2. Fˆ 1 and Fˆ 2 can be
obtained by a linear interpolation of the functions F1,
F2 in the points of the meshes G1 and G2, respectively.
Therefore, Fˆ 1 and Fˆ 2 define triangular meshes.
Let T be the Delaunay triangulation based on the
merging of two meshes G1 ∪ G2; it will be called the
general Delaunay triangulation. ΔABC is a triangle of
the triangulation T. The following denotation will be
introduced:
V ( A, B, C, F 1, F 2 )
Fˆ 1 ( x, y ) – Fˆ 2 ( x, y ) μ ( x, y ) dx dy.
=
∫∫
ΔABC
The value of the quantity V is the weighted volume
of the difference between the functions F1 and F2 in
ΔABC.
Here, the case is considered where the merging of
the convex hulls of two meshes is not empty:
Conv ( G 1 ) ∩ Conv ( G 2 ) ≠ 0.
In the opposite case, the surfaces must be reduced
to a system of coordinates where the condition (2) will
be satisfied and the surfaces will be comparable.
Introduce the dissimilarity measure ρd as
ρ d ( F 1, F 2 ) = ∑ V ( A, B, C, F 1, F 2 ).
ΔABC ∈ T
The introduced dissimilarity measure is a semimet
ric for the initial functions.
Therefore, as a dissimilarity measure, the sum of
the volumes of the difference is calculated between two
surfaces with respect to all the triangles of the general
triangulation T. At the same time, at the cost of the
function μ(x, y) it is possible to use the “weighted”
volume when the similarity of some fragments of the
surface have a greater weight than the similarity of
other fragments.
When at the points of the merged Delaunay trian
gulation the values of both compared functions are
known, the average axial spacing can be proposed as a
dissimilarity measure, i.e.,
ρ 'd ( F 1, F 2 ) = ∑ N +N
Fˆ 1 ( x i, y i ) – Fˆ 2 ( x i, y i ) .
1 2
( x i, y i ) i = 1
Such a measure is easier to compute, but if the dif
ference volume is known, the obtained value is more
informative.
Measure (3) equals 0 if and only if F1 ≡ F2.
The similarity measure of the surfaces can be intro
duced as follows:
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS
497
⎧ 1/ρ d , ρ d ≠ 0,
ρs = ⎨ (5)
⎩ 1, ρ d = 0.
Note that the functions F1 and F2 are defined on
different sets. The basic idea of the proposed approach
is that each function is performed at the points of the
other set using the Delaunay triangulation of the two
sets and the localization of the triangulations in each
other.
2. THE ALGORITHM FOR THE CALCULATION
OF THE SIMILARITY MEASURE
An algorithm is proposed for the solution of the
(1)
stated problem consisting in the following: Delaunay
triangulations are constructed on both meshes, then
each of the functions is interpolated with respect to the
other mesh, which is followed by the construction of
the general triangulation for those two meshes. Then
at each point of the merged mesh the values of the two
functions are known, and operations can be per
formed on individual cells (triangles) of the general
triangulation analyzing the mutual arrangement of the
(2) space triangles defined by the functions.
Therefore, the developed algorithm is based on the
idea of supplementing the values of each function in
the nodes of the other mesh by constructing the
Delaunay triangulation and their localization in each
other.
The main stages of the proposed algorithm are the
(3) following:
(1) Construction of the Delaunay triangulation on
each of the meshes G1 and G2;
(2) Localization of the points of each triangulation
in the triangles of the other one;
(3) Interpolation of the values of the function F1 at
the points of the mesh G2 and of the values of the func
tion F2 at the points of the mesh G1;
(4) Construction of the general triangulation (on
the mesh G1 ∪ G2);
(5) Comparison of the functions in the separate
cells of the general triangulation.
Consider each of these in more detail.
2.1. Construction of Delaunay Triangulations
For the construction of the triangulation, a well
known algorithm is used based on the recursive
(4) decomposition paradigm “divide and conquer,” where
the initial set is split by a vertical line into two approx
imately equal subsets, which is followed by the recur
sive construction of triangulations of these subsets and
then by the merging of the two split triangulations.
The computational complexity of this stage is
O(NlogN), where N is the number of points in the ini
tial set. In the implementation of this algorithm, the
data structure “nodes with neighbors” described in
[20] was used.
Vol. 20 No. 4 2010
498
(a)
B
D
Q M
A M
C G
Fig. 2. (a) Localization of the point in the triangulation, (b) the segment (MQ) passes through the vertex of the triangulation C.
2.2. Localizations of the Triangulations
At this stage the constructed triangulations are
localized in each other. At the same time, spanning
trees are used constructed in the nodes of each mesh.
At one of the subsequent stages, i.e., that of the con
struction of the general triangulation, the algorithm of
the merging of nondivided Delaunay triangulations
suggested by L. M. Mestetskiy and E. V. Tsarik in [18]
will be employed. This algorithm uses the minimum
spanning trees of both meshes; therefore, it is just the
minimum spanning trees (MSTs) that are feasible to
use for the localization of the meshes in the triangula
tion.
First consider the problem of the point localization
in the Delaunay triangulation.
2.2.1. Problem of point location in the triangulation.
Let there be given a point Q and the triangulation T. It
is required to define the triangle from T containing the
point Q. If the point Q coincides with one of the verti
ces of the triangulation, any triangle can be indicated
incident to this vertex. If the point Q belongs to one of
the edges of the triangulation, any triangle can be indi
cated incident to this edge. If the point is beyond the
triangulation, i.e., does not belong to the convex hull
of the set of the triangulation nodes, the point can be
considered to belong to a certain infinite triangle, or
the triangle nearest to the point can be defined.
The idea of an algorithm for the calculation of the
localization problem consists in the selection of a cer
tain initial point M, the localization of which in the
triangulation is known, and the gradual transition
from M to Q along the straight line (MQ) (see Fig. 2).
At each step, the transition is performed to the adja
cent (adjoining to the side) triangle. Of special interest
is the case when the segment [MQ] passes through
some vertex of the triangulation (see Fig. 2). A similar
algorithm was described in [6].
Therefore, in the process of the point localization,
a path of triangles from the triangulation is con
structed, each of which (except the initial one) is adja
cent to the previous triangle. Such a path will be called
a localization path. In Fig. 2 the triangles of the local
ization path are shown by bold lines.
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS
DYSHKANT
D (b)
P
Q
C
A
More formally, the algorithm of the localization
can be written in the following form:
(1) Select the initial triangle ΔABC. Assign it the
status of the current one. Find the coordinates of the
intersection point of the median lines (centroid) of the
triangle: Mx = (Ax + Bx + Cx)/3; My = (Ay + By + Cy)/3.
(2) Determine, which of the sides of the current tri
angle is crossed by the segment [MQ]. If this item is
performed for the first time, all three sides of the cur
rent triangle are checked for the intersection; other
wise, it will be sufficient to check only two sides, if the
side on which the transition to the current triangle was
made at the previous step.
(a) Let us take that the segment [MQ] does not
cross any of the sides or crosses it at the point Q. Then
the current triangle is the sought one, and the opera
tion of the algorithm is completed.
(b) Let the segment [MQ] cross one of the vertices
of the current triangle. Then the transition is made to
the triangle adjacent to the current one at any of the
sides containing this vertex, and the new triangle is
assigned the status of the current one. Transfer to the
beginning of item 2.
(c) Let the segment [MQ] cross one of the sides of
the triangle at an interior point. Then we transfer to
the triangle adjacent to the current one at one side and
make it current. Transfer to the beginning of item 2.
The complexity (labor intensity) of the localization
of a single point is determined by the number of trian
gles located along the segment [MQ] and is O( N ) on
average and O(N) at the worst.
2.2.2. Problem of mesh localization in the triangula
tion. The problem of the localization of the two
dimensional mesh G in the triangulation T will be
understood as the problem of the localization of every
point of the mesh G in the triangulation.
The algorithm of the mesh localization is proposed
using MST, the vertices of which are the points of the
given mesh (see Fig. 3).
2.2.3.Construction of minimum spanning trees. The
theoretical complexity of the algorithm for MST con
struction at N points is equal to O(NlogN). However,
on the basis of the Delaunay triangulation of the initial
Vol. 20 No. 4 2010
 AN ALGORITHM FOR CALCULATING THE SIMILARITY MEASURES
Fig. 3. Localization of the mesh in the triangulation.
point set, the minimum span can be constructed over
the time O(N).
For the MST construction, the Cheriton–Tarjan
algorithm ([2]) described in [14] was used, which
makes it possible to construct MST for a set of points
in a linear time by means of the Delaunay triangula
tion of the initial set.
The main strategy of the algorithm consists in a
stagewise processing of a queue of trees (forest) F,
which initially is a set of N vertices. At every step a cer
tain tree T is selected from the queue and a pair of ver
tices (U',V') such that
ρ ( U', V' ) = min { ρ ( U, V ) U ∈ T, V ∈ { N } – T },
( U, V )
a tree T ' is found containing V, trees T and T' are
merged in T', which is added to the forest F, and the
tree T' is removed from the F.
The linear operating time is attained at the cost of
the cleanup procedure suggested by Cheriton and Tar
jan, during which the initial Delaunay graph H is com
pressed into some other graph H* so that every tree
from the forest F is converted to a single “superver
tex,” i.e., the vertex of the graph H*. Making use of the
cleanup operation allows the graph H at each step to
contain only the information necessary for the perfor
mance of this step. To implement the queue of the
trees, the data structure of a Fibonacci heap was
selected introduced by M. Fredman and R. Tarjan in
[2] and [8]. For a detailed description of this data
structure and the proof of the computational complex
ity of the operations, see [4].
By means of the described algorithm, the mesh G1
is localized in the triangulation of the mesh G2, and the
mesh G2 is localized in the triangulation of the mesh G1.
Therefore, every point of the mesh is localized in a
certain triangle of the triangulation of another mesh,
and the problem of the interpolation of the function
defined on one mesh can be considered at the points of
the other mesh.
2.3. Interpolation of the Functions
For the interpolation of the surface on an element
of the triangulation, the linear interpolation is
employed. The values of the function F1 are interpo
lated at all the points of the mesh G2, and the values of
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS
499
3
2
Fig. 4. Interpolation of the functions: (1) the surface
defined by the first function on the first mesh, (2) the sur
face defined by the second function on the second mesh,
(3) the interpolated surface defined by the second function
on the first mesh.
the function F2 are interpolated at all the points of the
mesh G1 (see Fig. 4).
2.4.General Delaunay Triangulation
Now, at every point of both meshes the values of
two functions are known, one of which was specified
and the other of which was obtained by the interpola
tion. Here, the most efficient is the algorithm for the
merging of two nondivided triangulations because we
know the localization of the points of one triangula
tion in the triangles of the other one.
In every node of the general triangulation, two
functions are defined. At this stage, it is already possi
ble to perform some operations on them, e.g., to cal
culate the difference distance between the functions
and use the result as a dissimilarity measure of the ini
tial surfaces.
2.5. Comparison of the Functions in a Triangular Region
Of interest for possible applications is also the
operation for calculating the volume of the difference
between two functions. Such an operation is per
formed in separate cells (triangles) of the general tri
angulation. For each triangle, the volume of the differ
ence between two functions is calculated, then all the
results are summed and the similarity measure of the
surfaces (5) is calculated. Below, the proposed method
for the computation of this volume is presented in
greater detail.
Consider a certain triangle ΔA0B0C0 of the general
triangulation. Let ΔABC (ΔA’B'C') be a triangle, let
every vertex of which have the same coordinates along
the axes Ox and Oy as the corresponding vertex
ΔA0B0C0, and let the coordinate along the axis Oz be
equal to the value of the function F1(F2) at this vertex.
Vol. 20 No. 4 2010
500 DYSHKANT

(a) (c)
C'
B
C'
A' (b)
M M
A A(A')
C N
A' C
B'
A0 C0
A0 C0
C'

A C
B0 B0

Fig. 5. (a) a ≥ 0, c ≥ 0, b ≤ 0, (b) the wedge AA'MCC'N; (c) a = 0, b ≤ 0, c ≥ 0.

Let a = A 'z – Az, b = B 'z – Bz, c = C 'z – Cz. In calculat
ing the measure (3), F1 and F2 are compared in the tri
angle ΔA0B0C0. For this purpose, all the possible cases
of the mutual arrangement of the triangles ΔABC and
ΔA’B'C' were studied.
The first case. a ≥ 0, b ≥ 0, c ≥ 0, or a ≤ 0, b ≤ 0, c ≤ 0.
In this case the sought volume equals the volume of a
truncated prism: V = SΔ( a + b + c )/ 3.
The second case. Two quantities out of {a, b, c}
have one sign, and the sign of the third number is dif
ferent.
Without loss of generality of our considerations, it
will be assumed that a ≥ 0, c ≥ 0, and b ≤ 0. Let MN be
the segment at which the triangles ΔABC and ΔA’B'C'
(see Fig. 5a) intersect.
In this case the sought volume will be equal to the
sum of the volumes of the pyramid and the wedge: V =
VBMNB' + VAA'MCC'N. The coordinates of the points M
and N are obtained by the formulas Mt = (At a +
Bt b )/( a + b ), Nt = (Bt b + Ct c )/( b + c )
where t ∈ {x, y, z}. The volume of the pyramid BMNB'
is calculated by the formula VBMNB' = HSMNB'/ 3, where
H is the distance from the point B to the plane (MNB').
The volume of the wedge AA’MCC'N is equal to the
sum of the volumes of the two pyramids (see Fig. 5b)
VAA'MCC'N = VMAA'C'C + VNMCC', the volumes of which
can readily be calculated.
The third case. One of the quantities {a, b, c} equals
zero, and the remaining two have different signs. In
this case the sought volume equals the sum of the vol
umes of two triangular pyramids (see Fig. 5c): V =
VBAMB' + VMAC'C.
2.6.Estimate of the Computational Complexity of
the Algorithm
The experimental estimates show that each of the
stages, with the exception of the triangulation con
struction, is asymptotically performed in time linear
with respect to the number of nodes in the meshes. At
the same time, the linear estimate of the complexity
holds true for the stage of the mesh localization in the
Delaunay triangulation of the other mesh using the min
imum span under the uniform distribution of the mesh
points. The complexity of the algorithm for the construc
tion of the Delaunay triangulation is O(NlogN) and is
determinant for the proposed approach.
3. APPLICATIONS OF THE ALGORITHM:
COMPARISON OF THREEDIMENSIONAL
PORTRAITS
As applications of the proposed algorithm, prob
lems were considered on the comparison of three
dimensional facial models obtained by the method of
threedimensional scanning [1]. A 3D facial model,
generated by a threedimensional scanner, was studied
as a singlevalued function of two variables defined on
an irregular mesh (see Fig. 6).
In [17], the application of the algorithm is
described for the problem of comparing threedimen
sional models of faces belonging to different people.
3.1.Model Normalization in the System of Coordinates
In the considered applications, at the first stage of
face comparison preprocessing is performed, i.e., the
model normalization in the system of coordinates.
Each of the models is transformed to the standard sys
tem of coordinates, for which the following conditions
are fulfilled: (a) the axis Oz goes along the axis of sight
and directed to the camera, (b) the axis Oy goes along
the face and is directed from the chin to the forehead,
(c) the axis Ox goes across the face from the right to the
left, (d) the origin of coordinates satisfies the following
system (the summation is performed over all the points
(x, y) on which the function of the model is defined):

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 AN ALGORITHM FOR CALCULATING THE SIMILARITY MEASURES
Fig. 6. On the left is the triangulation of a regular mesh, on the right is the triangulation of an irregular mesh.
⎧ every model of the video sequence into the upper
⎪ ∑
⎨ ( x, y ) ∈ G
x = ∑ y = 0
( x, y ) ∈ G
⎪ of its own. For a face model made at rest, the upper
⎩ max F ( x, y ) = 0.
( x, y ) ∈ G
The preliminary reduction of the models to such a
standard system of coordinates enables the application
of the proposed algorithm to the comparison of
human faces.
3.2. The Problem of Facial Asymmetry Estimation
Based on a 3D Model
In [16], the method application is considered to the
computation of a quantitative estimation of facial
asymmetry on the basis of a threedimensional model.
In order to calculate the asymmetry estimate, the ini
tial facial model is compared with the mirror reflection
by the proposed method. The obtained value is called
the initial estimation of the asymmetry. This is fol
lowed by the stage at which the model symmetry plane
is refined, which results in the computation of the final
asymmetry estimate. Computational experiments per
formed on the basis of 3D faces proved the validity and
correctness of the final asymmetry estimation. Tested
on the collected base of faces, the proposed estimate
satisfies the compactness hypothesis.
3.3.The Problem of Estimating the Motion of the Human
Lower Jaw Based on a Sequence of 3D Models
It was proposed in [15] and [16] to use the intro
duced measure (3) in order to estimate the dynamics
of the lower jaw motion in the process of chewing on
the basis of a series of sequential threedimensional
models. Such a problem is topical for investigations in
the field of orthodontology and maxillofacial surgery.
The idea of estimating the motion parameters of
the lower jaw consists in the conditional subdivision of
PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS
501
(static) and lower (dynamic) parts and construction
for each of the parts of special local coordinate systems
and the lower systems of coordinates coincide, and for
the models of a dynamic video sequence, they differ.
The problem consists in recording these differences.
The transformation of the lower system of coordinates
into the upper one for every frame of the video
sequence describes the dynamics of the lower jaw
motion. The formal description of the motion is rep
resented in the form of matrices of the lower coordi
nates transformation into the upper ones.
The applications use the idea of a transformation of
the coordinate system of one of the models into the other
one yielding their best match (see Fig. 7). The search for
the best coincidence is carried out by means of the stan
dard minimization methods (gradient descent, coordi
nate descent, and simplex method) by the parameters of
elementary transformations (small shifts and rotations
about the coordinate axes). At the same time, the optimi
zation problem is being solved, i.e., the functional differ
ences between the models are minimized.
The comparison (matching) of the surfaces con
sists in finding a motion under which the measure of
the dissimilarity between surfaces describing faces is
minimum (Fig. 7).
4. COMPUTATIONAL EXPERIMENTS
In order to verify and validate the software imple
mentation of the proposed algorithm and to estimate
its computational complexity, computational experi
ments were performed1 for highdimensional prob
lems (10 000–100 000 points).
1 All
the computational experiments were performed on a computer
with an AMD Athlon 2600+ processor with 512 MB of RAM.
Vol. 20 No. 4 2010
502 DYSHKANT

Fig. 7. Search for the best coincidence of the two models.

As can be seen from Table 1, one comparison of
face models can be carried out in less than half a sec
ond. In solving the verification problem (onetoone
comparison) when one of the models is in the base, the
time can be reduced by half at the expense of the con
struction of the triangulation and MST at the prepro
cessing stage.
In Tables 2–4 the time consumption is shown for
some of the stages of the algorithm for various num
bers of points in the initial models. As is obvious from
the third columns of these tables, the labor intensity
(complexity) of the implementation of these stages is
linear.
Experiments were also performed comparing the
proposed method with the technique for the calcula
tion of the similar dissimilarity measure, at the first
stage of which the initial mesh is reduced to a regular
one by the interpolation method. The experiments
show that the method retaining the initial irregularity
of the mesh is more efficient.
In addition, on the basis of 3D facial models,
experiments were carried out making it possible to
estimate the approximation accuracy of the scanned
surfaces. In [3], P. Cignoni et al. considered in detail
the problem of the accuracy loss under the transition
to a simplified mesh. By comparing the initial triangu
lar mesh with a simplified mesh obtained by the trun
cation of some random points, it can be determined to
what extent the model can be simplified without a sig
nificant loss of accuracy with respect to measure (3)
for the specific application. In [16], it is shown how
the accuracy of the facial model approximation affects
the asymmetry estimation.

Table 1. Time consumption for various stages of the algo Table 2. Time of MST construction from the Delaunay tri
rithm in the calculation of the volume of the difference angulation by the Cheriton and Tarjan algorithm with the
between two facial models. The number of points in both use of Fibonacci heaps
meshes is N1 ≈ N2 ≈ 3000
Number Time (t)
N/t
Stage of the algorithm Time (s) of points (N) of construction, s
10000 0.453 22075
Construction of two triangulations 0.124
20000 0.906 22075
Construction of two MST 0.203 30000 1.312 22865
Localization of the triangulations in each other 0.015 40000 1.812 22075
50000 2.156 23191
Interpolation of the functions <0.001 60000 2.562 23419
Construction of the general triangulation 0.031 70000 3.156 22179
80000 3.531 22656
Calculation of the volume of the difference 0.031
90000 4.093 21988
Total time 0.405 100000 4.468 22381

PATTERN RECOGNITION AND IMAGE ANALYSIS Vol. 20 No. 4 2010

 AN ALGORITHM FOR CALCULATING THE SIMILARITY MEASURES 503

Table 3. Time of the localization of one mesh in the trian Applications of the algorithm are considered for
gles of the triangulation of the other mesh problems of the analysis of human face models
obtained on the basis of threedimensional scanning.
Number of points
of the mesh G1(N1)
Time, s (t) N1/t Computational experiments have been performed on
highdimensionality problems for each stage of the
5000 0.015 3 × 10–6 algorithm for the comparison of monotonic surfaces
10000 0.031 3.1 × 10–6 and for an applied problem on the comparison of
threedimensional facial models.
15000 0.046 3.0667 × 10–6
The performed experiments confirmed the validity
20000 0.078 3.9 × 10–6 and correctness of the proposed algorithm operation.
25000 0.093 3.72 × 10–6
30000 0.098 3.2667 × 10–6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
35000 0.109 3.1143 × 10–6
This work was supported by the Russian Founda
40000 0.14 3.5 × 10–6
tion for Basic Research, project nos. 080100670 and
45000 0.156 3.4667 × 10–6 080700305.
50000 0.171 3.42 × 10–6
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Natalia F. Dyshkant. Born in
1987. Graduated from Moscow State
University, Department of Computa
tional Mathematics and Cybernetics
in 2008. Postgraduate student of the
Chair of Mathematical Methods for
Forecasting, Department of Compu
tational Mathematics and Cybernet
ics. Scientific interests: pattern rec
ognition, data mining, machine
learning, computational geometry,
image processing and analysis, imag
ing systems, comparison of the shapes of threedimensional
objects. Author of 5 papers.
Vol. 20 No. 4 2010