Fast range image segmentation using high-level segmentation primitives

In this paper we present a novel algorithm for very fast segmentation of range images into both planar and curved surface patches. In contrast to other known segmentation methods our approach makes use of high-level features (curve segments) as segmentation primitives instead of individual pixels. This way the amount of data can be significantly reduced and a very fast segmentation algorithm is obtained. The proposed algorithm has been tested on a large number of real range images and demonstrated good results. With an optimized implementation our method has the potential to operate in quasi real-time (a few range images per second).