Point primitives for interactive modeling and processing of 3D geometry
Mark V. Pauly · 2003
3D geometry has become increasingly popular as a new form of digital media. Similar to other types of media data, i.e., sound, images, and video, this requires tools to acquire, store, process, edit, and transmit 3D geometry. With increasing complexity of 3D geometric models and growing demand for advanced modeling functionality, significant effort is being devoted to the design of efficient, reliable, and scalable algorithms for digital geometry processing. This thesis investigates the use of point primitives for 3D geometry processing and interactive modeling. Representing surfaces by point clouds allows direct processing of 3D scanner data, which avoids the need for surface reconstruction methods. The structural simplicity of point-based representations supports efficient re-sampling for extreme geometric deformations and topology changes. It also leads to concise algo-rithms that are well suited for hardware implementation. The main focus of this thesis is on algorithms for shape and appearance modeling of surfaces represented by point clouds. This requires methods for local surface analy-sis and reconstruction, filtering, re-sampling, and estimation of the signed distance