3D shape retrieval based on Laplace operator and joint Bayesian model

Feature analysis plays a significant role in computer vision and computer graphics. In the task of shape retrieval, shape descriptor is indispensable. In recent years, feature extraction based on deep learning becomes very popular, but the design of geometric shape descriptor is still meaningful due to the contained intrinsic information and interpretability. This paper proposes an effective and robust descriptor of 3D models. The descriptor is constructed based on the probability distribution of the normalized eigenfunctions of the Laplace–Beltrami operator on the surface, and a spectrum method for dimensionality reduction. The distance metric of the descriptor space is learned by utilizing the joint Bayesian model, and we introduce a matrix regularization in the training stage to re-estimate the covariance matrix. Finally, we apply the descriptor to 3D shape retrieval on a public benchmark. Experiments show that our method is robust and has good retrieval performance.