Scene description: interactive computation of stability with friction
Jeff L. DeCurtins, Prasanna G. Mulgaonkar · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1992
This paper describes a technique for hypothesizing the shape of hidden portions of unknown objects within a pile of such objects, using a dense range image of the pile. The technique employs symmetry, stability, viewpoint independence, and object impenetrability to hypothesize the unknown shape and dimension of each visible object. The process constructs alternative hypotheses, which differ in the way the visible portions of objects are extended into the occluded regions within the scene. To ensure that each interpretation is consistent with the observed range data, the known geometry of the range sensor is used in forming the hypotheses. The final result is one or more hypothesized object configurations, each of which is consistent with both the sensed range data and the physical constraints between objects in contact. For each resulting hypothesis, a free-body analysis is performed to determine if the hypothesized configuration is stable. The hypothesis with the highest stability rating is chosen as the most likely correct interpretation.