Retrieving matching CAD models by using partial 3D point clouds

The ability to search for a CAD model that represents a specific physical part is a useful capabilitythat can be used in many different applications. This paper presents an approach to use partial 3D
point cloud of an artifact for retrieving the CAD model of the artifact. We assume that the
information about the physical parts will be captured by a single 3D scan that produces dense point
clouds. CAD models in our approach are represented as polygonal meshes. Our approach involves
segmenting the point cloud and CAD mesh models into surface patches. The next step is to identify
corresponding surface patches in point clouds and CAD models that could potentially match.
Finally, we compute transformations to align the point cloud to the CAD model and compute
distance between them. We also present experimental results to show that our approach can be
used to retrieve CAD models of mechanical parts.