Direct point-based registration for precise non-rigid surface matching using Student's-t mixture model.

•A direct point set registration method based on Student’s-t mixture model for precise non-rigid surface matching is proposed.•Dirichlet distribution is introduced into the Student’s-t mixture model for formulating the prior probabilities.•Local spatial relationships between neighboring points are modeled by representing their posterior probabilities in a linear smoothing filter.•Directional springs that are defined as the orientation changes of the undirected edges are introduced to preserve structures of surfaces.