Skip to main content
Log in

An efficient parallel algorithm for geometrically characterising drawings of a class of 3-D objects

  • Published:
Journal of Mathematical Imaging and Vision Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Labelling the lines of a planar line drawing of a 3-D object in a way that reflects the geometric properties of the object is a much studied problem in computer vision, considered to be an important step towards understanding the object from its 2-D drawing. Combinatorially, the labellability problem is a Constraint Satisfaction Problem and has been shown to be NP-complete even for images of polyhedral scenes. In this paper, we examine scenes that consist of a set of objects each obtained by rotating a polygon around an arbitrary axis. The objects are allowed to arbitrarily intersect or overlay. We show that for these scenes, there is a sequential lineartime labelling algorithm. Moreover, we show that the algorithm has a fast parallel version that executes inO(log3 n) time on an Exclusive-Read-Exclusive-Write Parallel Random Access Machine withO(n 3/log3 n) processors. The algorithm not only answers the decision problem of labellability, but also produces a legal labelling, if there is one. This parallel algorithm should be contrasted with the techniques of dealing with special cases of the constraint satisfaction problem. These techniques employ an effective, but inherently sequential, relaxation procedure in order to restrict the domains of the variables.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. P. Alevizos, “A linear algorithm for labeling planar projections of polyhedra,” inProc. IEEE/RSJ Int. Workshop on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Osaka, Japan, 1991, pp. 595–601.

  2. M.B. Clowes, “On seeing things,”Artificial Intelligence, vol. 2, pp. 79–116, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  3. M. Goldberg and T. Spencer, “Constructing a maximal independent set in paprallel,”SIAM J. Discrete Mathematics, vol. 2, pp. 322–328, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  4. D.A. Huffman, “Impossible objects as nonsense sentences,”Machine Intelligence, vol. 6, B. Meltzer and D. Michie eds., Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1971, pp. 295–323.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R.M. Karp and V. Ramachandran, “Parallel algorithms for shared-memory machines,”Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science, vol. A, J. van Leeuwen ed., Elsevier: Amsterdam, 1990, pp. 869–942.

    Google Scholar 

  6. R.M. Karp and A. Wigderson, “A fast parallel algorithm for the maximal independent set problem,”J. Association of Computing Machinery, vol. 32, pp. 762–773, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  7. S. Kasif, “On the parallel complexity of discrete relaxation in constraint satisfaction networks,”Artificial Intelligence, vol. 45, pp. 275–286, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  8. L.M. Kirousis, “Effectively labeling planar projections of polyhedra,”IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 12, pp. 123–130, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  9. L.M. Kirousis, “Fast parallel constraint satisfaction,”Artificial Intelligence, vol. 64, pp. 147–160, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  10. L.M. Kirousis and C.H. Papadimitriou, “The complexity of recognizing polyhedral scenes,”Journal of Computer and System Sciences, vol. 37, pp. 14–38, 1988.

    Google Scholar 

  11. M. Luby, “A simple parallel algorithm for the maximal independent set problem,”SIAM J. Computing, vol. 15, pp. 1036–1053, 1986.

    Google Scholar 

  12. J. Malik, “Interpreting line drawings of curved objects,”International J. of Computer Vision, vol. 1, pp. 73–103, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  13. J. Malik and D. Maydan, “Recovering three-dimensional shape from a single image of curved objects,”IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 11, pp. 555–566, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  14. A.K. Mackworth and E.C. Freuder, “The complexity of some polynomial network consistency algorithms for constraint satisfaction problems,”Artificial Intelligence, vol. 25, pp. 65–74, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  15. U. Montanari and F. Rossi, “Constraint relaxation may be perfect,”Artificial Intelligence, vol. 48, pp. 143–170, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  16. P. Parodi and V. Torre, “A linear complexity procedure for labelling line drawings of polyhedral scenes using vanishing points,” inProc. International Conference on Computer Vision ICCV-93, Berlin, Germany, 1993, pp. 291–295.

  17. K. Sugihara, “A necessary and sufficient condition for a picture to represent a polyhedral scene,”IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, vol. 6, pp. 578–586, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  18. D. Waltz, “Understanding line drawings of scenes with shadows,”The Psychology of Computer Vision, P.H. Winston ed., McGraw-Hill: New York, 1975, pp. 19–91.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

This research was partially supported by the European Community ESPRIT Basic Research Program under contracts 7141 (project ALCOM II) and 6019 (project Insight II).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dendris, N.D., Kalafatis, I.A. & Kirousis, L.M. An efficient parallel algorithm for geometrically characterising drawings of a class of 3-D objects. J Math Imaging Vis 4, 375–387 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01262403

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01262403

Keywords

Navigation