Title: Region segmentation for STL triangular mesh of CAD object

Authors: Yuhui Peng; Yingjie Chen; Bin Huang

Addresses: School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China ' School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China

Abstract: Region segmentation involves in breaking a polygonal mesh into 'meaningful' patches with characteristic geometrical property respectively. Considering the characteristics of nonuniformity, sparseness and known facet normal for STL model from CAD system, an efficient approach for region segmentation is put forward. The algorithm contains two steps: extracting region boundaries and segmenting regional meshes. Region boundaries are classified into sharp feature edge and non-sharp feature edge. The former is detected based on dihedral edge angle (angle between facets), while the latter is identified by analysing intrinsic region properties of triangular facets distribution without curvature estimation. By means of unidirectional increment of feature edges, continuous region boundaries are generated. Finally, we withdraw "meaningful" patches from STL model based on advancing front algorithm depending on the boundaries. Examples are given to show the feature edges detection, boundaries generation and region segmentation based on the boundaries.

Keywords: STL triangular mesh; CAD objects; feature boundaries; region segmentation; advancing front; computer-aided design; feature edges; edge detection; boundary generation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2015.071383

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2015 Vol.19 No.1, pp.62 - 68

Received: 19 Jun 2014
Accepted: 29 Jun 2014
Published online: 24 Aug 2015 *

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