Adaptive surface reconstruction
Demetri Terzopoulos, M. Alex O. Vasilescu · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1991
This paper introduces a new approach to surface reconstruction motivated by concepts from numerical grid generation. We develop adaptive mesh models that nonuniformly sample and reconstruct input shape data. Adaptive meshes are dynamic models assembled from nodal masses connected by adjustable springs. Acting as mobile sampling sites, the nodes observe interesting properties of the input data, such as depths, gradients, and curvatures. The springs automatically adjust their stiffnesses based on the locally sampled information in order to concentrate nodes near rapid shape variations. The representational power of an adaptive mesh is enhanced by its ability to optimally distribute the available degrees of freedom in accordance with the local complexity of the input data. Surface reconstruction using adaptive meshes runs at interactive rates with continuous 3D display on a graphics workstation.