Accessibility analysis using computer graphics hardware

Analyzing the accessibility of an object's surface to probes or tools is im portant for many planning and programming tasks that involve spatial reason ing and arise in robotics and automation. This paper presents novel and eff icient algorithms for computing accessible directions for tactile probes us ed in 3D digitization with Coordinate Measuring Machines. The algorithms ar e executed in standard computer graphics hardware. They are a nonobvious ap plication of rendering hardware to scientific and technological areas beyon d computer graphics.