Connectivity encoding and decoding of polygon meshes

Abstract

Methods of connectivity encoding polygonal mesh representations of objects are described, along with methods of decoding encoded connectivity information for polygonal mesh representations of objects. In the encoding process, an active vertex queue is initialized with one or more vertices incident to a seed face. A vertex is selected from the queue, and the ring of the vertex traversed. If an unprocessed face is encountered during the traversal, the degree of the face, and the valences of any unprocessed vertices incident to the face are output. Any such unprocessed vertices are also entered into the queue. The method iterates until no more vertices remain on the active queue. In one implementation, an encoded data stream is output, which comprises two logical streams, one for face-degree information and the other for vertex-valence information. In the decoding process, the encoded data stream is received, and the connectivity of the mesh regenerated.