Patent Document ID: 8340401
Application ID: 12673495
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for associating a three-dimensional surface representing a real object and a three-dimensional reference surface, said reference surface being represented by a set of reference points, the method comprising: obtaining a set of real points representing the real surface; determining the normal vector of each point of said obtained set of real points; selecting, among the set of real points, control points according to the determined normal vector by converting the set of real points to a bi-dimensional space of normal vectors; generating sets of points having similar normal vector among the points of the set of real points; and selecting, for each set of points with similar normal vector, one point that is a control point of the real surface; determining correspondence points close to the set of reference points that are determined to correspond to the control points of the real surface; and determining the motion that minimizes the distances between the control points of the real surface and the correspondence points; wherein determining correspondence points close to the set of reference points that are estimated to correspond to the control points of the real surface comprises the sub-steps of: retrieving or determining the normal vector of each point of the set of reference points; determining the points of intersection between each normal vector of the control points of the real surface and the set of reference points; obtaining the tangent plane at each intersection point by using the normal vector of the intersection point; and obtaining each correspondence point as the point at the tangent plane that has the minimum distance to the control point.