Extraction and Recognition of Form Features in a Polyhedral Object by Using Edge Loops

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of extracting form features from the boundary representation of a polyhedral object. In this approach, the form features of a designed object are represented as the extended vertex-edge graphs, which are composed of the edges with the information of the concavities or convexities and the vertices connecting edges. On the vertex-edge graphs, the concept of edge loops is newly introduced in order to realize efficient recognition of form features on a part model. An edge loop on the vertex-edge graph is defined as the cyclic path chaining the edges on it and the extraction of edge loops can reduce the search space in recognizing form features. Emphasis is put on recognition of form features which are formed by the interacting features and a new recognition method based on edge loops and virtual faces is proposed.