Building statistical shape models of fruit and vegetables

Capturing the variability of fruit is useful in many ways, such as object detection and shape prediction. A statistical shape model is useful to predict the final size of a fruit, search for a correlation between stages of growth, or to estimate the volume of the fruit. Fruit package designers may use the shape model to evaluate the effect of the fruit on airflow characteristics and thus cooling uniformity.
In this project, a methodology to construct a realistic shape model from a given class of fruit or vegetables is proposed. First, a correspondence between all surfaces of the population is found. Using PCA, a shape model is built from the corresponding surfaces. This model consists of the mean shape and the main variances inside the class.