A new algorithm for triangulation from cross sections and its application to surface area estimation

This article proposes a new heuristic (locally determined) algorithm for the triangulation between point sequences representing cross-sectional contours of a surface. Such point sequence is required to be the set of vertices of a polygon representing a Jordan curve and approximating the contour. The algorithm which is applied directly to the whole point sequence, is very simple since it is based on comparisons between coordinates within a plane. The triangulation algorithm is applied to surface area estimation, where we use the polygonal approximations of cross sectional contours given by the sequences of MLP (minimal length polygon) vertices or of DSS (maximal digital straight segments) vertices. The test surfaces of known area are ellipsoids of revolution and hyperboloids of one sheet. VC 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 21, 58–66, 2011; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary. com). DOI 10.1002/ima.20267