Representation of 3D surfaces by two-variable Fourier descriptors

A method for generating two-variable 3D FDs directly from a striped lighting system is developed. An iterative algorithm is proposed to compute the two-variable 3D FDs for both axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric objects and a formula for convergence test is derived. Experiments conducted for a set of 3D objects show that the iterative algorithm converges very quickly and the two-variable 3D FD representations are attained accurately.