Partial 3d-object retrieval using level curves

3D object recognition from 3D scenes, is one of the challenges of several researchers in the field of computer vision, engineering and Robotics. The occlusion is one of the problems that we can found. One of the possible solutions in this situation is to find a part of an object in the scene that can be identified. For this reason, we are mainly interested to partial shape retrieval methods. In this paper, we present a new approach for 3D partial object retrieval based on level curves matching. Our approach can be used as an alternative solution for classification-based methods. We generate in the off-line step a dataset by using a viewing sphere to extract levels curves at different points of view. The level curves are a set of 2D planar contours that are the projection of points on several perpendicular planes. The level curves of each query partial object is compared with a set of level curves that define one 3D object from the dataset. The number of matched curves between a partial object and complete object represent the weight of that class. The class with the heavy weight is identify as the class of the query object.