Hi Venkatesh,
You can find the explanation how PointsetToImageRegistration works in our paper "Gaussian process morphable models", in Section 4.1:
To calculate the variance, you need to look at the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix. The sum of all eigenvalues corresponds to the total variance. To see how many components you need to cover, say 80% of the variance, simply take as many of the leading principal until the sum of their associated eigenvalues exceeds 80% of the total variance. For Statismo, this procedure is illustrated here:
Best regards,
Marcel