Abstract
The segmentation of digitized data to decompose a free form surface into patches is one of the key processes used to perform the reverse engineering of an object. To this end, discrete curvature approximations are introduced that form the basis of a segmentation process which lead to a decomposition of digitized data into areas that will help the construction of surface patches.
The approach presented relies on the use of a polyhedral representation of an object built from the digitized data input. Then, it is shown how noise reduction techniques, edge swapping techniques and adapted remeshing schemes can participate to different preparation phases which 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 polyhedrons issued by the preparation phases. The segmentation process proposed involves two stages: the identification of characteristic polylines and the identification of polyhedral regions. Discrete curvature criteria are adapted to each stage and concepts of invariant are introduced to generate criteria, which are constant over equivalent meshes. An outline of the segmentation procedure is provided together with examples of results for free form objects.