Surface Reconstruction From Triple Dexel Model for Virtual Sculpting

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method for surface reconstruction from triple dexel data for virtual sculpting. A triple dexel based virtual sculpting system is developed to provide the capability of interactive solid modeling with haptic interface. A solid model is converted to triple dexel data, which depicts the intersections of the solid with rays cast in three orthogonal directions, and modified during the virtual sculpting process. The boundary of the tool swept volume is computed based on the Sweep Differential Equation method. Contour generation and combination algorithms convert the triple dexel data to three sets of orthogonal slices of contours. A tiling algorithm then generates the solid’s boundary surface in triangular facets from these contours. Examples are given to demonstrate the ability of the developed method and software to realistically simulate the physical sculpting process and to allow viewing the sculpted models in any directions.