3D versus 2D/3D shape descriptors: A comparative study

This paper proposes a comparative study of 3D and 2D/3D shape descriptors (SDs) for of 3D mesh model indexing and retrieval. Seven state of the art SDs are considered and compared, among which five are 3D (Optimized 3D Hough DescriptorO3DHTD, Extended Gaussian Images - EGIs, cords length and spherical angles histograms, random triangles histogram, MPEG-7 3D shape spectrum descriptor - 3DSSD), and two 2D/3D, based on the MPEG-7 2D SDs (Contour Scale Space- CSS, and Angular Radial Transform - ART). A low complexity vector quantized (VQ) OH3DD is also proposed and considered for this comparison. Experimental results were carried out upon the categorized MPEG-7 3D test database. By computing Bull-Eye Score (BES) and First Tier (FT) criteria, it is objectively established that the O3DHTD (even in its VQ version) outperforms (BES = 81% or 79%).all other SDs. The 2D/3D CSS-based descriptor exhibits a highly discriminant behavior (BES = 74%) outperforming the other both 3D and 2D/3D approaches. Apply to the industrial framework of the French national project SEMANTIC-3D, the O3DHTD demonstrated its relevance together with its scalability and robustness properties.