Symbolic Representation of Object Models

An approach which combines symbolic and numerical methods for the solution of systems of geometric constraints is described. Such constraints arise from the description of parameterized object models as well as the geometric relationships between objects, cameras and light sources. Typical applications are environmental modeling for photointerpretation and autonomous navigation. The representation of object models in terms of algebraic constraint equations is described. A symbolic triangulation method for reducing systems of polynomial constraint equations is presented. The use of such triangular systems in the solution of constraint equations is discussed in the context of nonlinear programming.