  This paper introduces an efficient procedure to localize user-defined points
on the surface of deformable objects and track their positions in 3D space over
time. To cope with a deformable object's infinite number of DOF, we propose a
discretized deformation field, which is estimated during runtime using a
multi-step non-linear solver pipeline. The resulting high-dimensional energy
minimization problem describes the deviation between an offline-defined
reference model and a pre-processed camera image. An additional regularization
term allows for assumptions about the object's hidden areas and increases the
solver's numerical stability. Our approach is capable of solving the
localization problem online in a data-parallel manner, making it ideally
suitable for the perception of non-rigid objects in industrial manufacturing
processes.
