Feature-First Hole Filling Strategy for 3D Meshes

In this paper we introduce an efficient hole-filling strategy for 3D meshes and at the same time aesthetically recover the sharp features of the original 3D model at the hole areas. Commonly, hole filling techniques try to fill up the hole first then smooth it. Very few have tried to recover the fine features of the original model at the holes. Our hole filling technique is different from other existing techniques as features are taken as the first subject to reconstruct, which eventually drive the feature-definite surface filling process. Feature curves in the missing part are reconstructed by extending salient features of the existing parts. The hole is partitioned into several smaller and more planar sub-holes by the feature curves and then the hole-filling step are done on those sub-holes. User intervention is allowed to design features to be in desired shape. This indeed guides feature curve reconstruction wherever ambiguity exists or results are unsatisfactory. It is also very efficient as a user is interfering only with sharp features and the actual hole-filling step is dealing with only simple holes.