Acquisition of 2-D shape models from scenes with overlapping objects using string matching

Abstract

In this paper we describe a system that is able to acquire models of 2-D shapes from cluttered scenes. The input of the system is a sequence of images each of which shows an unknown number of overlapping unknown 2-D objects. The system identifies matching partial shapes across different images and combines them into complete 2-D shape models thus giving a complete interpretation of the input scenes. The identification of partial shapes is based on string matching, whereas a graph search procedure is used for shape model generation. The system has been fully implemented and tested on images containing parts of a jigsaw puzzle.