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Medial Meshes – A Compact and Accurate Representation of Medial Axis Transform

Published: 01 March 2016 Publication History

Abstract

The medial axis transform has long been known as an intrinsic shape representation supporting a variety of shape analysis and synthesis tasks. However, for a given shape, it is hard to obtain its faithful, concise and stable medial axis, which hinders the application of the medial axis. In this paper, we introduce the <italic>medial mesh</italic>, a new discrete representation of the medial axis. A medial mesh is a 2D simplicial complex coupled with a radius function that provides a piecewise linear approximation to the medial axis. We further present an effective algorithm for computing a concise and stable medial mesh for a given shape. Our algorithm is quantitatively driven by a shape approximation error metric, and progressively simplifies an initial medial mesh by iteratively contracting edges until the approximation error reaches a predefined threshold. We further demonstrate the superior efficiency and accuracy of our method over existing methods for medial axis simplification.

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        cover image IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
        IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics  Volume 22, Issue 3
        March 2016
        147 pages

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        IEEE Educational Activities Department

        United States

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        Published: 01 March 2016

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