Generating shapes by analogies: an application to hearing aid design

Abstract

3D shape modeling is a crucial component of rapid prototyping systems that customize shapes of implants and prosthetic devices to a patient s anatomy In this paper we present a solution to the problem of customized 3D shape modeling using a statistical shape analysis framework. We design a novel method to learn the relationship between two classes of shapes which are related by certain operations or transformation The two associated shape classes are represented in a lower dimensional manifold, and the reduced set of parameters obtained in this subspace is utilized in an estimation which is exemplified by a multivariate regression in this paper We demonstrate our method with a felicitous application to the estimation of customized hearing aid devices