Multi-feature matching algorithm for free-form 3D surface registration

Applications such as object digitizing, object recognition and object inspection need efficient surface matching algorithms. Several variants of an iterative closest point (ICP) matching algorithm have been proposed for such tasks. This paper proposes and analyzes a multi-feature ICP matching algorithm that includes the surface color and the surface orientation information. The matching error minimization keeps the original closed-form solution. Therefore, the convergence of the multi-feature ICP algorithm cannot be proven any more. However, experiments show successful convergence. Further experimental results applying the multi-feature ICP to free-form objects show a significant increase of the range of successful convergence range.