An interactive approach to point cloud triangulation

We present an interactive system for the generation of high quality triangl e meshes that allows us to handle hybrid geometry (point clouds, polygons, ...) as input data. In order to be able to robustly process huge data sets, we exploit graphics hardware features like the raster manager and the z-bu ffer for specific sub-tasks in the overall procedure. By this we significan tly accelerate the stitching of mesh patches and obtain an algorithm for su b-sampling the data points in linear time. The target resolution and the tr iangle alignment in sub-regions of the resulting mesh can be controlled by adjusting the screen resolution and viewing transformation. An intuitive us er interface provides a flexible tool for application dependent optimizatio n of the mesh.