We introduce an algorithm for 3D object modeling where the user
draws creative inspiration from an object captured in a single photograph.
Our method leverages the rich source of photographs for
creative 3D modeling. However, with only a photo as a guide, creating
a 3D model from scratch is a daunting task. We support the
modeling process by utilizing an available set of 3D candidate models.
Specifically, the user creates a digital 3D model as a geometric
variation from a 3D candidate. Our modeling technique consists
of two major steps. The first step is a user-guided image-space
object segmentation to reveal the structure of the photographed object.
The core step is the second one, in which a 3D candidate
is automatically deformed to fit the photographed target under the
guidance of silhouette correspondence. The set of candidate models
have been pre-analyzed to possess useful high-level structural
information, which is heavily utilized in both steps to compensate
for the ill-posedness of the analysis and modeling problems based
only on content in a single image. Equally important, the structural
information is preserved by the geometric variation so that the final
product is coherent with its inherited structural information readily
usable for subsequent model refinement or processing.