The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 16, 2002
Filed:
Feb. 02, 1998
Anne L. Simpson, Houston, TX (US);
Landmark Graphics Corporation, Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
A method for filling the space between two neighboring polyline ribs is disclosed. The method, called ladder triangulation, likens two ribs, which generally outline a complex structure, to the two rails of a ladder. The ladder triangulation is built by adding rungs, each rung connecting a node on one rib to a node on the other rib and thereby (after the first rung) creating one more triangle. In essence the first rung connects node of polyline to node of polyline , and the second rung connects either node polyline to node polyline or else node polyline to node polyline , whichever rung is shorter. There are (n +n )/2 such rungs where n and n are the respective node counts of the two polylines, and computation is linear with node count. Where there are multiple polylines, the same process is repeated between polylines and and , etc. and may also be repeated between the last polyline and the first one (cyclic rib fill). The entire set of ribs is filled in time proportional to the total node count. Moreover, if a single rib is subsequently modified by an editing process, a triangulation can be updated rapidly by recomputation of just the two ladder triangulations involving that rib.