Content-based retrieval of 3D models

In the past few years, there has been an increasing availability of technologies for the acquisition of digital 3D models of real objects and the consequent use of these models in a variety of applications, in medicine, engineering, and cultural heritage. In this framework, content-based retrieval of 3D objects is becoming an important subject of research, and finding adequate descriptors to capture global or local characteristics of the shape has become one of the main investigation goals. In this article, we present a comparative analysis of a few different solutions for description and retrieval by similarity of 3D models that are representative of the principal classes of approaches proposed. We have developed an experimental analysis by comparing these methods according to their robustness to deformations, the ability to capture an object's structural complexity, and the resolution at which models are considered.