Submanifolds of Fixed Degree in Graded Manifolds for Perceptual Completion

Abstract

We extend to a Engel type structure a cortically inspired model of perceptual completion initially proposed in the Lie group of positions and orientations with a sub-Riemannian metric. According to this model, a given image is lifted in the group and completed by a minimal surface. The main obstacle in extending the model to a higher dimensional group, which can code also curvatures, is the lack of a good definition of codimension 2 minimal surface. We present here this notion, and describe an application to image completion.