A 3D geometry search engine in support of learning

Due to the increasing popularity of 3D graphics in animation and games, the use of 3D geometry models increases dramatically. Despite its growth in importance, geometry models are in fact difficult and time consuming to build. A distance learning system for the construction of such models could greatly facilitate students from different places and times to learn and practice. In such a system, the most important component is the search engine, which serves as both the data source of teaching materials and also a sharing platform for students' portfolios. Though there are many search engines developed for text and for multimedia data, such as images and videos, search engines for geometry models are still in its infant stage. To design a search engine for a distance learning platform, there are still challenges to face. In this paper, we investigate two important issues, namely, feature analysis that affects the general usage of a system and the speed that affects the number of concurrent users. Our focus in this work is on deformable models (non-rigid models), which are most frequently used for animation and game design. Our method offers a mechanism to extract, match, index and fast retrieval of stable features from these models. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.