Coarse-to-fine approximation of range images with bounded error adaptive triangular meshes

bstract. A new technique for approximating range images with daptive triangular meshes ensuring a user-defined approximation rror is presented. This technique is based on an efficient coarseo-fine refinement algorithm that avoids iterative optimization stages. he algorithm first maps the pixels of the given range image to 3D oints defined in a curvature space. Those points are then tetraheralized with a 3D Delaunay algorithm. Finally, an iterative process tarts digging up the convex hull of the obtained tetrahedralization, rogressively removing the triangles that do not fulfill the specified pproximation error. This error is assessed in the original 3D space. he introduction of the aforementioned curvature space makes it ossible for both convex and nonconvex object surfaces to be aproximated with adaptive triangular meshes, improving thus the beavior of previous coarse-to-fine sculpturing techniques. The proosed technique is evaluated on real range images and compared o two simplification techniques that also ensure a user-defined aproximation error: a fine-to-coarse approximation algorithm based n iterative optimization (Jade) and an optimization-free, fine-tooarse algorithm (Simplification Envelopes). © 2007 SPIE and S&T. DOI: 10.1117/1.2731824