On edge detection on surfaces

Edge detection in images has been a fundamental problem in computer vision from its early days. Edge detection on surfaces, on the other hand, has received much less attention. The most common edges on surfaces are ridges and valleys, used for processing range images in computer vision, as well as for non-photorealistic rendering in computer graphics. We propose a new type of edges on surfaces, termed relief edges. Intuitively, the surface can be considered as an unknown smooth manifold, on top of which a local height image is placed. Relief edges are the edges of this local image. We show how to compute these edges from the local differential geometric surface properties, by fitting a local edge model to the surface. We also show how the underlying manifold and the local images can be roughly approximated and exploited in the edge detection process. Last but not least, we demonstrate the application of relief edges to artifact illustration in archaeology.