Simple and Efficient Polygonization of Implicit Surfaces

Abstract

This paper describes a simple and efficient polygonization algorithm that gives a practical way to construct adapted piecewise linear representations of implicit surfaces. The method starts with a coarse uniform polygonal approximation of the surface and subdivides each polygon recursively according to local curvature. In this way, the inherent complexity of the problem is tamed by separating structuring from sampling and reducing part of the full three-dimensional search to two dimensions.