A Gaussian kernel for Kendall’s space of m-D shapes

Abstract

In this paper, we develop an approach to exploit kernel methods with data lying on the m-D Kendall shape space. When data arise in a finite-dimensional curved Riemannian manifold, as in this case, the usual Euclidean computer vision and machine learning algorithms must be treated carefully. A good approach is to use positive definite kernels on manifolds to embed the manifold with its corresponding metric in a high-dimensional reproducing kernel Hilbert space, where it is possible to utilize algorithms developed for linear spaces. Different Gaussian kernels can be found in the literature on the 2-D Kendall shape space to perform this embedding. The main novelty of this work is to provide a Gaussian kernel for the m-D Kendall shape space. This new Kernel coincides in the case m = 2 with the Gaussian kernels most widely used in the Kendall planar shape space and allows to define an embedding of the m-D Kendall shape space into a reproducible kernel Hilbert space. As far as we know, the complexity of the m-D Kendall shape space has meant that this embedding has not been addressed in the literature until now. This methodology will be tested on a machine learning problem with a simulated and a real data set.