A TRIANGULATION METHOD OF AN ARBITRARY POINT SET FOR BIOMAGNETIC PROBLEMS

A new triangulation method has been developed for extracting isosurfac e from volume data, The nodes for triangulation can be selected arbitr arily from the surface of the object of interest. The Voronoi polygons for nodes are searched on the surface and triangulation is accomplish ed by connecting the neighboring Voronoi areas. The method is basicall y Delaunay triangulation using geodesic distances instead of Euclidean ones. In areas where the curvature of the surface is low, the Delauna y criteria are fulfilled. When the curvature is high, the geometry of the object is described more accurately than in Euclidean Delaunay met hods, Since geodesic distances are utilized, i.e., the surface informa tion is used in triangulation, the topology of the object can be prese rved more easily than in the Euclidean cases. Our fully automatic meth od has been developed for boundary element modeling and it has been su ccessfully applied in magnetocardiographic and electrocardiographic fo rward and inverse studies. However, the method can be utilized in any triangulation problem if the surface description is provided.