Siemens Medical Solutions Usa, Inc.

Siemens Corporation

Jin Zhou

Tong Fang

Hui Xie

Gregory G Slabaugh

Gozde Unal

A method and apparatus for the smoothing of a mesh surface is disclosed whereby neighboring vertices of a target vertex are identified, for example, by identifying the neighboring vertices within a desired distance from the target vertex. A normal of the target vertex is determined as a function of, for example, the features of a set of neighbor triangles corresponding to the set of neighboring vertices. A local coordinate system is then established. Unknowns in a quadratic surface function are then solved as a function of the position of the neighboring vertices with respect to the local coordinate system and new x and y coordinates in the local coordinate system are determined for the target vertex. These new x and y coordinates are entered into the quadratic surface function to obtain a new smoothed z coordinate for the target vertex.

Method and apparatus for non-shrinking mesh smoothing using local fitting

A method and apparatus for rounding a sharp edge of a model of an object is disclosed whereby a ball is propagated in a desired direction along the edge to be smoothed. The position of the ball at each point in its propagation is noted and, as a result, a virtual tunnel through which the ball passed may be constructed. Points on the sides of the surface of the object in proximity to the sharp edge are then projected onto the virtual tunnel by connecting with a line each point in proximity to the sharp edge to the center of the tunnel. New projected points are created at each position on the surface of the tunnel where the lines intersect that surface. The original points along the sharp edge are then hidden or deleted and the points along the virtual tunnel are connected via well-known surface reconstruction methods. In this way, a sharp edge of a triangle mesh model are advantageously smoothed.

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Port Jefferson Station, NY, United States of America

Jin Zhou