A New Algorithm for Boolean Operations on General Polygons

Yu Peng (1) , Jun-Hai Yong (2) , Wei-Ming Dong (1) , Hui Zhang (2) , Jia-Guang Sun (3)

1 CAD - Computer Aided Design
2 THSS - School of Software
3 cgcad, Thss

A new algorithm for Boolean operations on general planar polygons is presented. It is available for general planar polygons (manifold or non-manifold, with or without holes). Edges of the two general polygons are subdivided at the intersection points and touching points. Thus, the boundaryof the Boolean operation resultant polygon is made of some whole edges of the polygons after the subdivision process. We use the simplex theory to build the basic mathematical model of the new algorithm. The subordination problem between an edge and a polygon is reduced to a problem of determining whether a point is on some edges of some simplices or inside the simplices, and the associated simplicial chain of the resultant polygon is just an assembly of some simplices and their coefficients of the two polygons after the subdivision process. Examples show that the running time required bythe new algorithm is less than one-third of that bythe Rivero and Feito algorithm.

Mots clés: curve; surface; solid; and object representations; Geometric algorithms; languages; and systems; Modeling packages; Computational geometry; Geometric modeling; Boolean operation; Polygon intersection

Domaines: Synthèse d'image et réalité virtuelle [cs.GR]

Yu Peng, Jun-Hai Yong, Wei-Ming Dong, Hui Zhang, Jia-Guang Sun. A New Algorithm for Boolean Operations on General Polygons. Computers and Graphics, 2005, 29 (1), pp.57-70. ⟨10.1016/j.cag.2004.11.001⟩. ⟨inria-00517670⟩