[Colloq] Master's Thesis Defense - Bo Gao

[Rachel Kalweit]

College of Computer and Information Science

Master's Thesis Defense by:
Bo Gao

will speak on
“Surface Reconstruction from Point Cloud”

Friday, December 7, 2007
11:00am
166 West Village H

Abstract:
A point cloud is a set of three-dimensional points describing the outlines or surface features of an object. The point cloud is usually generated by a 3D scanner, which is a device that analyzes a real-world object or environment to collect data on its shape and possibly its appearance. The goal of surface reconstruction can be stated as follows: Given a set of sample points X assumed to lie on or near an unknown surface F, create a surface model S approximating F. This problem arises in various applications such as CAD designs, medical imaging, visualization, entertainment, reverse engineering and so on. There are various properties of a 3D object that one may be interested in recovering, including its shape, its color, and its material properties. My work is focused on the problem of recovering 3D shape, also called surface reconstruction.

This dissertation addresses the two most famous algorithms for surface reconstruction, one in Computer Graphics and one in Computational Geometry. An improved approach, taking advantages of both areas, is then described. These methods can automatically reconstruct accurate, concise, piecewise smooth surfaces from unorganized 3D points. In addition, detailed implementations and comparisons of these methods are introduced. 

Committee:
Prof. Harriet Fell (Advisor)
Prof. Robert Futrelle