[Insight-users] Polygonization algorithms, Marching Triangles

[Bill Lorensen]

I don't consider itkBinaryMask3DMeshSource to be a marching cubes
implementation. It only works with binary masks as far as I know.
vtkMarchingCubes is the proper one to use. It would be nice to have a
marching cubes implementaion in itk that generates quad edge meshes.

Bill

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Dan Mueller <dan.muel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Insight-users,
>
> Our group is interested in comparing polygonziation algorithms. By
> polygonization I mean algorithms which convert an implicit surface
> embedded in a scalar volume to a mesh. We are specifically interested
> in so-called "adaptive" algorithms, which produce a mesh consisting of
> variable-size polygons based on some criteria (such as curvature).
>
> Obviously ITK already includes the Marching Cubes [1] algorithm within
> Algorithms/itkBinaryMask3DMeshSource. Together with
> Review/itkQuadEdgeMeshDecimationFilter I understand it is possible to
> generate adaptive polygonizations. But surely it would be more
> efficient/faster to go straight from the volume to an adaptive mesh,
> without the intermediate decimation step?
>
> Anyhow, to investigate such matters we obviously need to
> source/implement other polygonization algorithms. The first algorithm
> we wish to focus on is Marching Triangles [2] (or at least one of its
> more recent/improved derivations [3]).
>
> Question 1: Is there an existing ITK Marching Triangles implementation
> out there? From my understanding there is not one in the existing code
> archive, or submitted to the Insight Journal. Perhaps there is one
> hidden in the NAMIC Sandbox? Or some discarded student project
> collecting the digital equivalent of dust on someone's hard drive?
>
> Question 2: I am surprised Marching Triangles has not been previously
> included in the toolkit. Is this because of lack of
> time/motivation/interest? Or perhaps some other more frustrating
> issue, such as "intellectual property" (ie. patent)? I did a cursory
> patent search, but did not turn up anything...
>
> Thanks for any advice/pointers.
>
> Cheers, Dan
>
> [1] Lorensen and Cline, Marching cubes: A high resolution 3D surface
> construction algorithm, Proceedings of the 14th annual conference on
> Computer graphics and interactive techniques, pp 163 - 169, 1987
>
> [2] Hilton, Stoddart, Illingworth and Windeatt, Marching triangles:
> range image fusion for complex object modelling, Proceedings.of the
> International Conference on Image Processing, pp. 381-384, 1996
> http://personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/A.Hilton/research/mt/hilton-mt-97.pdf
>
> [3] Akkouche andc Galin, Adaptive Implicit Surface Polygonization
> Using Marching Triangles, Computer Graphics Forum Volume 20 Issue 2,
> pp. 67-80, 2002
> http://www.ann.jussieu.fr/~frey/papers/scivi/Akkouche%20S.,%20Adaptive%20implicit%20surface%20polygonization%20using%20marching%20triangles.pdf
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