Designing Quadrangulations with Discrete Harmonic Forms

Y Tong (1) , Pierre Alliez (2) , David Cohen-Steiner (3) , Mathieu Desbrun (1)

1 CALTECH - California Institute of Technology
2 TITANE - Geometric Modeling of 3D Environments
3 DATASHAPE - Understanding the Shape of Data

We introduce a framework for quadrangle meshing of discrete manifolds. Based on discrete differential forms, our method hinges on extending the discrete Laplacian operator (used extensively in modeling and animation) to allow for line singularities and singularities with fractional indices. When assembled into a singularity graph, these line singularities are shown to considerably increase the design flexibility of quad meshing. In particular, control over edge alignments and mesh sizing are unique features of our novel approach. Another appeal of our method is its robustness and scalability from a numerical viewpoint: we simply solve a sparse linear system to generate a pair of piecewise-smooth scalar fields whose isocontours form a pure quadrangle tiling, with no T-junctions.

Domaines: Géométrie algorithmique [cs.CG]

Y Tong, Pierre Alliez, David Cohen-Steiner, Mathieu Desbrun. Designing Quadrangulations with Discrete Harmonic Forms. EUROGRAPHICS Symposium on Geometry Processing, 2006, Cagliary, Italy. ⟨hal-02615683⟩