Quad Meshing

Triangle meshes have been nearly ubiquitous in computer graphics, and a large body of data structures and geometry processing algorithms based on them has been developed in the literature. At the same time, quadrilateral meshes, especially semi-regular ones, have advantages for many applications, and significant progress was made in quadrilateral mesh generation and processing during the last several years. In this State of the Art Report, we discuss the advantages and problems of techniques operating on quadrilateral meshes, including surface analysis and mesh quality, simplification, adaptive refinement, alignment with features, parametrization, and remeshing

Lp Centroidal Voronoi Tesselation and its applications

International audienceThis paper introduces Lp -Centroidal Voronoi Tessellation (Lp -CVT), a generalization of CVT that minimizes a higher-order moment of the coordinates on the Voronoi cells. This generalization allows for aligning the axes of the Voronoi cells with a predefined background tensor field (anisotropy). Lp -CVT is computed by a quasi-Newton optimization framework, based on closed-form derivations of the objective function and its gradient. The derivations are given for both surface meshing (Ω is a triangulated mesh with per-facet anisotropy) and volume meshing (Ω is the interior of a closed triangulated mesh with a 3D anisotropy field). Applications to anisotropic, quad-dominant surface remeshing and to hex-dominant volume meshing are presented. Unlike previous work, Lp -CVT captures sharp features and intersections without requiring any pre-tagging

Dev2PQ: Planar Quadrilateral Strip Remeshing of Developable Surfaces

We introduce an algorithm to remesh triangle meshes representing developable surfaces to planar quad dominant meshes. The output of our algorithm consists of planar quadrilateral (PQ) strips that are aligned to principal curvature directions and closely approximate the curved parts of the input developable, and planar polygons representing the flat parts of the input. Developable PQ-strip meshes are useful in many areas of shape modeling, thanks to the simplicity of fabrication from flat sheet material. Unfortunately, they are difficult to model due to their restrictive combinatorics and locking issues. Other representations of developable surfaces, such as arbitrary triangle or quad meshes, are more suitable for interactive freeform modeling, but generally have non-planar faces or are not aligned to principal curvatures. Our method leverages the modeling flexibility of non-ruling based representations of developable surfaces, while still obtaining developable, curvature aligned PQ-strip meshes. Our algorithm optimizes for a scalar function on the input mesh, such that its level sets are extrinsically straight and align well to the locally estimated ruling directions. The condition that guarantees straight level sets is nonlinear of high order and numerically difficult to enforce in a straightforward manner. We devise an alternating optimization method that makes our problem tractable and practical to compute. Our method works automatically on any developable input, including multiple patches and curved folds, without explicit domain decomposition. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a variety of developable surfaces and show how our remeshing can be used alongside handle based interactive freeform modeling of developable shapes

Easy Integral Surfaces: A Fast, Quad-based Stream and Path Surface Algorithm

a fast, quad-based stream and path surface algorith

Connectivity Control for Quad-Dominant Meshes

abstract: Quad-dominant (QD) meshes, i.e., three-dimensional, 2-manifold polygonal meshes comprising mostly four-sided faces (i.e., quads), are a popular choice for many applications such as polygonal shape modeling, computer animation, base meshes for spline and subdivision surface, simulation, and architectural design. This thesis investigates the topic of connectivity control, i.e., exploring different choices of mesh connectivity to represent the same 3D shape or surface. One key concept of QD mesh connectivity is the distinction between regular and irregular elements: a vertex with valence 4 is regular; otherwise, it is irregular. In a similar sense, a face with four sides is regular; otherwise, it is irregular. For QD meshes, the placement of irregular elements is especially important since it largely determines the achievable geometric quality of the final mesh. Traditionally, the research on QD meshes focuses on the automatic generation of pure quadrilateral or QD meshes from a given surface. Explicit control of the placement of irregular elements can only be achieved indirectly. To fill this gap, in this thesis, we make the following contributions. First, we formulate the theoretical background about the fundamental combinatorial properties of irregular elements in QD meshes. Second, we develop algorithms for the explicit control of irregular elements and the exhaustive enumeration of QD mesh connectivities. Finally, we demonstrate the importance of connectivity control for QD meshes in a wide range of applications.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Curvature-based remeshing methodology oriented to human face 3D models

Remeshing techniques seek to modify a mesh in order to adapt it to an specific application. This work proposes a remeshing methodology specialized in the human face, whose purpose is to reduce the number of faces and vertices that requires the mesh, keeping the characteristics of the human anatomy. Curvature information that highlights the intrinsic anisotropy of natural geometry or geometry of human origin is used to accomplish this. Results were polygonal anisotropic meshes, composed mainly of quadrilaterals, with less than 50% of the points and faces of the initial mesh, that maintain the anatomical features for models of the face in a neutral expression, or expressions of happiness, disgust, fear, angry, surprise, and sadness. The methodology was validated with models from the BU-3DFE database, and the quality of the obtained results were evaluated against the remeshing achieved when a technique of simplification based on quadric error metrics is used.Las técnicas de remallado buscan modificar la malla de entrada para adaptarla a la aplicación específica. En este trabajo se propone una metodología de remallado especializada en el rostro humano, cuyo propósito es reducir el número de caras y vértices que requiere la malla, manteniendo las características propias de la anatomía humana. Para lograr esto se utiliza la información de curvatura, la cual destaca la anisotropía intrínseca en la geometría natural o en la geometría de origen humano. Como resultado se obtuvieron mallas anisotrópicas poligonales, compuestas principalmente por cuadriláteros, con menos del 50% de los puntos y caras de la malla inicial, que mantienen las características anatómicas para modelos del rostro en expresión neutra, o con expresiones de alegría, enojo, repugnancia, miedo, sorpresa y tristeza. La metodología se validó con los modelos presentes en la base de datos BU-3DFE, y se comparó la calidad de los resultados obtenidos contra el remallado que se logra con la técnica de simplificación basada en quadric error metrics

Practical quad mesh simplification

In this paper we present an innovative approach to incremental quad mesh simplification, i.e. the task of producing a low complexity quad mesh starting from a high complexity one. The process is based on a novel set of strictly local operations which preserve quad structure. We show how good tessellation quality (e.g. in terms of vertex valencies) can be achieved by pursuing uniform length and canonical proportions of edges and diagonals. The decimation process is interleaved with smoothing in tangent space. The latter strongly contributes to identify a suitable sequence of local modification operations. The method is naturally extended to manage preservation of feature lines (e.g. creases) and varying (e.g. adaptive) tessellation densities. We also present an original Triangle-to-Quad conversion algorithm that behaves well in terms of geometrical complexity and tessellation quality, which we use to obtain the initial quad mesh from a given triangle mesh