Curvature-dependent triangulation of implicit surfaces
Tasso Karkanis, A. James Stewart · IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications · 2001
Implicit surfaces appear in many applications, including medical imaging, molecular modeling, computer aided design, computer graphics and finite element analysis. Despite their many advantages, implicit surfaces are difficult to render efficiently. Today's real-time graphics systems are heavily optimized for rendering triangles, so an implicit surface should be converted to a mesh of triangles before rendering. Our algorithm polyonalizes an implicit surface. The algorithm generates a mesh of close-to-equilateral triangles with sizes dependent on the local surface curvature. We assume that the implicit surface is connected and G/sup 1/ is smooth (that is, the tangent plane varies continuously over the surface). The algorithm requires an evaluator for the implicit function defined at all points in space, an evaluator for the function gradient defined at points near the surface, and a bounding box around the surface. The output of the algorithm is good for applications requiring a well-behaved triangulation, such as rendering systems and finite element partial differential equation (PDE) solvers.