From parametric warping to the cooperation of local features and global models

This paper addresses the question of how to integrate local and global information-the goal being a stable mechanism to partition parametric data into meaningful classes without injecting a priori information about the data. To do this we introduce a novel framework to represent both local and global information and their interactions. Where both types of information are represented together in parameter space and together define a self-organisation or warping of the data. An unsupervised clustering analysis is then performed to extract from the parametric data classes that are stable and meaningful. As an example of this paradigm we consider the problem of shape decomposition. Here we describe how image discontinuities (i.e. curves, edges or local curvature) can be integrated with global parametric models that represent the image. The resulting class clusters are then equivalent to the inferred part decomposition. An example of how this process can be used is demonstrated by applying it to the specific problem of determining the parts of 3-D objects. Results on real laser rangefinder images of complex objects are presented.