A shape sensing system comprises a processor coupled to a memory storage device and a predictive model module stored in the memory storage device and configured to receive shape sensing measurements and predict next shape sensing measurements based upon current state data for a shape sensing enabled device, the predictive model module including a Kalman filter and at least one reference model employed by the Kalman filter. The Kalman filter employs the reference model(s) and the current state data to predict new shape data by weighting the reference model(s) versus the current state data to improve shape data measurements.