A Parallel Algorithm For Surface Triangulation

In many scientific fields, three dimensional surfaces must be reconstructed from a given collection of its surface points. Applications for surface reconstruction exist in medical research and diagnosis as well as in design intensive disciplines. Fuchs, Kedem, and Uselton and Keppel show that surface reconstruction via triangulation can be reduced to the problem of finding a path in a toroidal graph. This paper presents a parallel algorithm to find the minimum cost acceptable path in an m by n toroidal graph. We then show an implementation of the parallel algorithm on a parallel architecture, using a message passing approach. Results are shown, along with suggestions for future enhancements. 1 Introduction The problem of surface reconstruction is important in many scientific disciplines, such as medical research and diagnosis, architecture, and in geometric design. For instance, light microscopes capable of high magnifications are monocular, and thus can only generate cross sec..