Triage polygonization of rounded polyhedra

This paper describes a method for rounding and polygonizing edges and corne rs of polyhedral models to produce softer, more natural looking objects. Th e underlying rounded surface is assumed to be defined by "quasiconvolutiona l smoothing", and the focus is on polygonizing the surface rapidly and effi ciently. A binary space partitioning (BSP) tree is used to classify space i n the vicinity of a polyhedron to identify the curved regions. Planar surfa ces are extracted as single polygons, and extra polygons are introduced onl y at rounded edges and corners. The result is a high-quality polygonization of the rounded polyhedron with none of the fragmentation problems of more general polygonization methods.