Discrete curvature approximations and segmentation of polyhedral surfaces

The segmentation of digitized data to divide a free form surface into patches is one of the key steps required to perform a reverse engineering process of an object. To this end, discrete curvature approximations are introduced as the basis of a segmentation process that lead to a decomposition of digitized data into areas that will help the construction of parametric surface patches. The approach proposed relies on the use of a polyhedral representation of the object built from the digitized data input. Then, it is shown how noise reduction, edge swapping techniques and adapted remeshing schemes can participate to different preparation phases to provide a geometry that highlights useful characteristics for the segmentation process. The segmentation process is performed with various approximations of discrete curvatures evaluated on the polyhedron produced during the preparation phases. The segmentation process proposed involves two phases: the identification of characteristic polygonal lines and the identification of polyhedral areas useful for a patch construction process. Discrete curvature criteria are adapted to each phase and the concept of invariant evaluation of curvatures is introduced to generate criteria that are constant over equivalent meshes. A description of the segmentation procedure is provided together with examples of results for free form object surfaces

The geometry of a bi-Lagrangian manifold

This is a survey on bi-Lagrangian manifolds, which are symplectic manifolds endowed with two transversal Lagrangian foliations. We also study the non-integrable case (i.e., a symplectic manifold endowed with two transversal Lagrangian distributions). We show that many different geometric structures can be attached to these manifolds and we carefully analyse the associated connections. Moreover, we introduce the problem of the intersection of two leaves, one of each foliation, through a point and show a lot of significative examples.Comment: 30 page