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Enveloping CAD models for visualization and interaction in XR applications

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Abstract

3D visualization of and interaction with CAD models are fundamental tasks in web and mobile XR applications. Meshes of CAD model surfaces, however, have too many triangles to be interactively rendered in these environments. Despite all development in mesh simplification literature, currently, there is no algorithm capable of producing a low-poly representation of the CAD model’s outer shape with only thousands of triangles. In this work, we propose a new automatic method to obtain a radically simplified representation of a CAD model by computing an adaptive envelope that wraps it. This envelope is represented by a 2-manifold triangular mesh that iteratively approximates the outer surface of the CAD model to capture its details. The envelope’s topology allows the surface to be further decimated using classical algorithms to reach the desired resolution. Furthermore, the representation proposed here can also be easily parameterized to obtain texture coordinates and then apply a texture baking technique. We also present an evaluation of the geometric and visual error of our method using real models.

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  1. https://highlights.ikea.com/2017/ikea-place/

  2. https://grabcad.com/

  3. https://www.freecadweb.org/

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Acknowledgements

We thank the support provided by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Tecgraf Institute (PUC-Rio).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Jan Hurtado, Marcelo Gattass, Felipe Carvalho & Alberto Raposo

  2. Federal Fluminense University, Niterói, Brazil

    Anselmo Montenegro

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  1. Jan Hurtado
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Hurtado, J., Montenegro, A., Gattass, M. et al. Enveloping CAD models for visualization and interaction in XR applications. Engineering with Computers 38, 781–799 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-020-01040-9

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