Implicit simplicial models for adaptive curve reconstruction

Parametric deformable models have been extensively and very successfully used for reconstructing free-form curves and surfaces, and for tracking nonrigid deformations, but they require previous knowledge of the topological type of the data, and good initial curve or surface estimates. With deformable models, it is also computationally expensive to check for and to prevent self-intersections while tracking deformations. The Implicit Simplicial Models that we introduce in this paper are implicit curves and surfaces defined by piece-wise linear functions. This representation allows for local deformations, control of the topological type, and prevention of self-intersections during deformations. As a first application, we also describe in this paper an algorithm for two-dimensional curve reconstruction from unorganized sets of data points. The topology, the number of connected components, and the geometry of the data are all estimated using an adaptive space subdivision approach. The main four components of the algorithm are topology estimation, curve fitting, adaptive space subdivision, and mesh relaxation. ©1996 IEEE.