Global parametrization of range image sets

We present a method to globally parameterize a surface represented by height maps over a set of planes (range images). In contrast to other parametrization techniques, we do not start with a manifold mesh. The parametrization we compute defines a manifold structure, it is seamless and globally smooth, can be aligned to geometric features and shows good quality in terms of angle and area preservation, comparable to current parametrization techniques for meshes. Computing such global seamless parametrization makes it possible to perform quad remeshing, texture mapping and texture synthesis and many other types of geometry processing operations. Our approach is based on a formulation of the Poisson equation on a manifold structure defined for the surface by the range images. Construction of such global parametrization requires only a way to project surface data onto a set of planes, and can be applied directly to implicit surfaces, nonmanifold surfaces, very large meshes, and collections of range scans. We demonstrate application of our technique to all these geometry types

Reverse Engineering Trimmed NURB Surfaces From Laser Scanned Data

A common reverse engineering problem is to convert several hundred thousand points collected from the surface of an object via a digitizing process, into a coherent geometric model that is easily transferred to a CAD software such as a solid modeler for either design improvement or manufacturing and analysis. These data are very dense and make data-set manipulation difficult and tedious. Many commercial solutions exist but involve time consuming interaction to go from points to surface meshes such as BSplines or NURBS (Non Uniform Rational BSplines). Our approach differs from current industry practice in that we produce a mesh with little or no interaction from the user. The user can produce degree 2 and higher BSpline surfaces and can choose the degree and number ofsegments as parameters to the system. The BSpline surface is both compact and curvature continuous. The former property reduces the large storage overhead, and the later implies a smooth can be created from noisy data. In addition, the nature ofthe BSpline allows one to easily and smoothly alter the surface, making re-engineering extremely feasible. The BSpline surface is created using the principle ofhigher orders least squares with smoothing functions at the edges. Both linear and cylindrical data sets are handled using an automated parameterization method. Also, because ofthe BSpline's continuous nature, a multiresolutional-triangulated mesh can quickly be produced. This last fact means that an STL file is simple to generate. STL files can also be easily used as input to the system.Mechanical Engineerin

Reverse Engineering Trimmed NURB Surfaces From Laser Scanned Data

A common reverse engineering problem is to convert several hundred thousand points collected from the surface of an object via a digitizing process, into a coherent geometric model that is easily transferred to a CAD software such as a solid modeler for either design improvement or manufacturing and analysis. These data are very dense and make data-set manipulation difficult and tedious. Many commercial solutions exist but involve time consuming interaction to go from points to surface meshes such as BSplines or NURBS (Non Uniform Rational BSplines). Our approach differs from current industry practice in that we produce a mesh with little or no interaction from the user. The user can produce degree 2 and higher BSpline surfaces and can choose the degree and number ofsegments as parameters to the system. The BSpline surface is both compact and curvature continuous. The former property reduces the large storage overhead, and the later implies a smooth can be created from noisy data. In addition, the nature ofthe BSpline allows one to easily and smoothly alter the surface, making re-engineering extremely feasible. The BSpline surface is created using the principle ofhigher orders least squares with smoothing functions at the edges. Both linear and cylindrical data sets are handled using an automated parameterization method. Also, because ofthe BSpline's continuous nature, a multiresolutional-triangulated mesh can quickly be produced. This last fact means that an STL file is simple to generate. STL files can also be easily used as input to the system.Mechanical Engineerin

A Hierarchical Triangulation for Multiresolution Terrain Models

Interactive visualisation of triangulated terrain surfaces is still a problem for virtual reality systems. A polygonal model of very large terrain data requires a large number of triangles. The main problems are the representation rendering efficiency and the transmission over networks. The major challenge is to simplify a model while preserving its appearance. A multiresolution model represents different levels of detail of an object. We can choose the preferable level of detail according to the position of the observer to improve rendering and we can make a progressive transmission of the different levels. We propose a multiresolution triangulation scheme that eliminates the restrictions of the restricted quadtree triangulation and obtains better results.Facultad de Informátic

Parametric Deformation of Discrete Geometry for Aerodynamic Shape Design

We present a versatile discrete geometry manipulation platform for aerospace vehicle shape optimization. The platform is based on the geometry kernel of an open-source modeling tool called Blender and offers access to four parametric deformation techniques: lattice, cage-based, skeletal, and direct manipulation. Custom deformation methods are implemented as plugins, and the kernel is controlled through a scripting interface. Surface sensitivities are provided to support gradient-based optimization. The platform architecture allows the use of geometry pipelines, where multiple modelers are used in sequence, enabling manipulation difficult or impossible to achieve with a constructive modeler or deformer alone. We implement an intuitive custom deformation method in which a set of surface points serve as the design variables and user-specified constraints are intrinsically satisfied. We test our geometry platform on several design examples using an aerodynamic design framework based on Cartesian grids. We examine inverse airfoil design and shape matching and perform lift-constrained drag minimization on an airfoil with thickness constraints. A transport wing-fuselage integration problem demonstrates the approach in 3D. In a final example, our platform is pipelined with a constructive modeler to parabolically sweep a wingtip while applying a 1-G loading deformation across the wingspan. This work is an important first step towards the larger goal of leveraging the investment of the graphics industry to improve the state-of-the-art in aerospace geometry tools

Watertight conversion of trimmed CAD surfaces to Clough-Tocher splines

The boundary representations (B-reps) that are used to represent shape in Computer-Aided Design systems create unavoidable gaps at the face boundaries of a model. Although these inconsistencies can be kept below the scale that is important for visualisation and manufacture, they cause problems for many downstream tasks, making it difficult to use CAD models directly for simulation or advanced geometric analysis, for example. Motivated by this need for watertight models, we address the problem of converting B-rep models to a collection of cubic C1C1 Clough–Tocher splines. These splines allow a watertight join between B-rep faces, provide a homogeneous representation of shape, and also support local adaptivity. We perform a comparative study of the most prominent Clough–Tocher constructions and include some novel variants. Our criteria include visual fairness, invariance to affine reparameterisations, polynomial precision and approximation error. The constructions are tested on both synthetic data and CAD models that have been triangulated. Our results show that no construction is optimal in every scenario, with surface quality depending heavily on the triangulation and parameterisation that are used.This research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through Grant EP/K503757/1.This is the final version. It was first published by Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167839615000795