Smooth Boundary Surfaces from Binary 3D Datasets

Abstract

Computer graphics relies on several types of internal representations of synthetic worlds. The models so represented are the ones rendered to the screen to create the illusion of reality. Internally, two inherently distinct types of representations exist. The continuous representation uses a collection of geometric objects such as polygons or splines to represent the model. The discrete representation samples the object and represents it by a discrete collection of points in space. An image is an example of a 2D discrete object while a texture mapped polygon combines elements from both representations. Historically, computer graphics has mainly dealt with the continuous approach and invested most of its efforts in building software and hardware systems for its rapid rendering. In the last decade a growing interest in discrete graphics has emerged, mainly in the applications of texture mapping, volume rendering, and image based rendering. In these applications, a collection of 3D coloured points called voxels is commonly employed, and the term voxel representation is commonly used to stand for any discrete graphics object.