A shrink wrapping approach to remeshing polygonal surfaces

Due to their simplicity and flexibility, polygonal meshes are about to beco me the standard representation for surface geometry in computer graphics ap plications. Some algorithms in the context of multiresolution representatio n and modeling can be performed much more efficiently and robustly if the u nderlying surface tesselations have the special subdivision connectivity In this paper we propose a new algorithm for converting a given unstructured triangle mesh into one having subdivision connectivity. The basic idea is t o simulate the shrink wrapping process by adapting the deformable surface t echnique known from image processing. The resulting algorithm generates sub division connectivity meshes whose base meshes only have a very small numbe r of triangles. The iterative optimization process that distributes the mes h vertices over the given surface geometry guarantees low local distortion of the triangular faces. We show several examples and applications includin g the progressive transmission of subdivision surfaces.