A new volume warping method for surface reconstruction

Abstract

Volumetric models of 3D objects have recently been introduced into the reverse engineering process. Due to their efficiency and simplicity, grid-based methods are considered the major technique for reconstructing surfaces from these volumetric models. Yet these methods suffer from a number of inherent drawbacks, resulting from the fact that the imposed Cartesian grid is generally not well adapted to the surface in size or in orientation. To overcome the above obstacles, this paper proposes a new iso-surface extraction method for volumetric objects. The main idea is first to construct a geometrical field induced by the object's shape. This geometrical field represents the natural directions and grid cell size for each point in the domain. Then, the imposed volumetric grid is deformed by the produced geometrical field to approach the object's shape. The iso-surface meshes can be extracted from the resulting adaptive grid by any conventional grid-based contouring technique. These meshes provide a better approximation of the unknown surface and exhibit the anisotropy present in this surface. Since the produced meshes are all quad, Catmull–Clark subdivision surfaces can be directly constructed from them. Moreover, accurate physical models of the reconstructed objects can be produced using rapid prototyping (RP) technology.