3D engineering model retrieval based on enhanced shape distributions

To reuse and share the valuable knowledge embedded in repositories of engineering models for accelerating the design process, improving product quality, and reducing costs, it is crucial to devise search engines capable of matching 3D models efficiently and effectively. In this paper, an enhanced shape distributions-based technique of using geometrical and topological information to search 3D engineering models represented by polygonal meshes was presented. A simplification method of polygonal meshes was used to simplify engineering model as the pretreatment for generation of sample points. The method of sampling points was improved and a pair of functions that was more sensitive to shape was employed to construct a 2D shape distribution. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the proposed algorithm utilizing the Engineering Shape Benchmark (ESB) database. The experiential results suggest that the search effectiveness is significantly improved by enforcing the simplification and enhanced shape distributions to engineering model retrieval. Copyright © 2009 Editorial Department of Journal of Donghua University. All rights reserved.