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3D shapes provide substantially more information than 2D images. However, the acquisition of 3D shapes is sometimes very difficult or even impossible in comparison with acquiring 2D images, making it necessary to derive the 3D shape from 2D images. Although this is, in general, a mathematically ill-posed problem, it might be solved by constraining the problem formulation using prior information. Here, we present a new approach based on Kendall’s shape space to reconstruct 3D shapes from single monocular 2D images. The work is motivated by an application to study the feeding behavior of the basking shark, an endangered species whose massive size and mobility render 3D shape data nearly impossible to obtain, hampering understanding of their feeding behaviors and ecology. 2D images of these animals in feeding position, however, are readily available. We compare our approach with state-of-the-art shape-based approaches both on human stick models and on shark head skeletons. Using a small set of training shapes, we show that the Kendall shape space approach is substantially more robust than previous methods and always results in plausible shapes. This is essential for the motivating application in which specimens are rare and therefore only few training shapes are available.
Estimating 3D Shape of the Head Skeleton of Basking Sharks Using Annotated Landmarks on a 2D Image
(2022)
Basking sharks are thought to be one of the most efficient filter-feeding fish in terms of the throughput of water filtered through their gills. Details about the underlying morphology of their branchial region have not been studied due to various challenges in acquiring real-world data. The present thesis aims to facilitate this, by developing a mathematical shape model which constructs the 3D structure of the head skeleton of a basking shark using annotated landmarks on a single 2D image. This is an ill-posed problem as estimating the depth of a 3D object from a single 2D view is, in general, not possible. To reduce this ambiguity, we create a set of pre-defined training shapes in 3D from CT scans of basking sharks. First, the damaged structures of the sharks in the scans are corrected via solving a set of optimization problems, before using them as accurate 3D representations of the object. Then, two approaches are employed for the 2D-to-3D shape fitting problem–an Active Shape Model approach and a Kendall’s Shape Space approach. The former represents a shape as a point on a high-dimensional Euclidean space, whereas the latter represents a shape as an equivalence class of points in this Euclidean space. Kendall’s shape space approach is a novel technique that has not yet been applied in this context, and a comprehensive comparison of the two approaches suggests this approach to be superior for the problem at hand. This can be credited to an improved interpolation of the training shapes.