Gradient Calculations for Nonrigid Surface Registration

TL;DR

By applying two simplifications, the minimization problem back to solving a system of linear equations is traced back to solving a system of linear equations.

Abstract

The goal of rigid registration is to align a source surface $ X $ to a target surface $ Y $. The alignment process involves iteratively transforming $ X $ closer and closer to $ Y $, such that $ X=Z^0 \rightarrow Z^1 \rightarrow Z^2 \rightarrow ... \rightarrow Z^T=Y $. By applying two simplifications, we can trace the minimization problem back to solving a system of linear equations.