The computation of a rigid body transformation which optimally aligns a set of measurement points with a surface and related registration problems are studied from the viewpoint of geometry and optimization.We provide a convergence analysis for widely used registration algorithms such as ICP, using either closest points (Besl and McKay [2]) or tangent planes at closest points (Chen and Medioni [4]), and for a recently developed approach based on quadratic approximants of the squared distance function [24]. ICP based on closest points exhibits local linear convergence only. Its counterpart which minimizes squared distances to the tangent planes at closest points is a Gauss-Newton iteration; it achieves local quadratic convergence for a zero residual problem and - if enhanced by regularization and step size control - comes close to quadratic convergence in many realistic scenarios. Quadratically convergent algorithms are based on the approach in [24]. The theoretical results are supported by a number of experiments; there, we also compare the algorithms with respect to global convergence behavior, stability and running time.

On a K-unstable toric variety we show the existence of an optimal destabilising convex function. We show that if this is piecewise linear then it gives rise to a decomposition into semistable pieces analogous to the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of an unstable vector bundle. We also show that if the Calabi flow exists for all time on a toric variety then it minimizes the Calabi functional. In this case the infimum of the Calabi functional is given by the supremum of the normalized Futaki invariants over all destabilising test-configurations, as predicted by a conjecture of Donaldson.

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In this paper we study classification of homogeneous solutions to the stationary Euler equation with locally finite energy. Written in the form $\bu = \n^\perp \Psi$, $\Psi(r,\th) = r^{\l} \psi(\th)$, for $\l >0$, we show that only trivial solutions exist in the range $0<\l<1/2$, i.e. parallel shear and rotational flows. In other cases many new solutions are exhibited that have hyperbolic, parabolic and elliptic structure of streamlines. In particular, for $\l>9/2$ the number of different non-trivial elliptic solutions is equal to the cardinality of the set $(2,\sqrt{2\l}) \cap \N$. The case $\l = 2/3$ is relevant to Onsager's conjecture. We underline the reasons why no anomalous dissipation of energy occurs for such solutions despite their critical Besov regularity $1/3$.