On the Quality of Point Set Triangulations based on Convex Hulls

In this paper we describe a method for directly generating triangle strips from unstructured point clouds based on onion peeling triangulation (OPT). It is an iterative reconstruction of the convex hulls of point clouds in the 2D plane, and it uses pairs of subsequent layers to establish triangle strips. We compare the obtained triangulations with the results of Delaunay triangulations in terms of the distribution of the symmetry of obtained triangles and in regard to the number of polygons/vertices emitted. Our initial results show that onion peeling is a straightforward method to directly obtain large triangle strips of point clouds. As expected, the triangulation is not as well behaved as in Delaunay-triangulation [VK07]. In terms of triangle complexity and average strip length OPT is a very favorable triangulation alternative which also lends suitable for the triangulation of 3D point clouds.