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Adaptive generation of surfaces in volume data

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Abstract

A widespread approach to generating polygonal approximations of iso-surfaces or contour surfaces in volume data is the socalled marching-cubes algorithm. This algorithm, however, has the disadvantage that the number of polygonal chains generated is considerable. The splitting-box algorithm presented here reduces the number of polygonal chains by adapting their size to the shape of the surface. The resulting polygonal chains offer a wide spectrum for representing the contour surface. An exact representation is achieved by a new type of generic patches calculated from the polygonal chains. Approximations of different quality may be obtained by combining the algorithm generating the patches with simple triangulations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Informatik, Universität Freiburg, Rheinstrasse 10-12, W-7800, Freiburg, Federal Republic of Germany

    Heinrich Müller & Michael Stark

Authors
  1. Heinrich Müller
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  2. Michael Stark
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Correspondence to Heinrich Müller.

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Müller, H., Stark, M. Adaptive generation of surfaces in volume data. The Visual Computer 9, 182–199 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01901723

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01901723

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