3D Model Hole Repair via 2D Surface Deformation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional rendering applications are unable to effectively generate fill surfaces for holes in three-dimensional models, particularly those with arbitrary shapes, leading to inconsistent appearances and significant computational time, resulting in poor user experiences.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method that identifies holes in 3D models, generates a refined quasi-developable surface, converts it into a 2D surface, and deforms it into a 3D surface to fill the hole, using a multi-step process involving rough mesh generation, refinement, edge collapse and flip operations, and deformation into a watertight mesh.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a conventional rendering application generates a fill surface for a hole in a polygonal mesh, then the hole is filled with additional polygons, but the physical shape and overall appearance of the fill surface is inconsistent with the physical characteristics of the polygonal mesh as a whole
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the hole-filling problem by changing the parameter dimensionality - converting a 3D surface generation problem into a 2D plane generation problem, then mapping it back to 3D space. This parameter transformation allows the fill surface to precisely match the boundary hole while maintaining consistency with the surrounding mesh characteristics through controlled deformation.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention introduces a intermediate 2D dimension to solve the 3D hole-filling problem. By generating a planar surface in 2D space that matches the hole boundary, and then deforming it into 3D space to conform to the surrounding mesh geometry, the method achieves both boundary precision and visual consistency that direct 3D generation cannot accomplish.
2Reliability
If a conventional rendering application attempts to repair holes in a polygonal mesh, then fill surfaces are generated, but significant time is required to compute the fill surfaces, resulting in poor user experience
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the hole-filling process into distinct sequential steps: identifying the hole boundary, generating a 2D planar surface matching the boundary, deforming the 2D surface into 3D space, and integrating it with the original mesh. This segmentation allows each step to be optimized independently and enables early termination or progressive refinement, reducing overall computational time compared to attempting to generate the complete 3D fill surface in a single computationally intensive operation.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a conventional rendering application generates fill surfaces for holes, then the mesh is repaired, but the application typically cannot generate fill surfaces for holes having arbitrary shapes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter representation from direct 3D surface geometry to 2D planar coordinates. By working in 2D space where arbitrary shapes can be easily defined by their boundary coordinates, the method can handle any hole shape. The 2D plane is then deformed into 3D space to match the surrounding mesh, ensuring the fill surface adapts to arbitrary hole geometries while maintaining reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A mesh repair engine is configured to repair a hole in a three-dimensional (3D) model by (i) filling the hole with a rough mesh, (ii) refining the rough mesh, (iii) collapsing the refined mesh, (iv) refining the collapsed mesh, (v) flattening the refined, collapsed mesh, and then (vi) deforming the flattened mesh into a 3D surface that smoothly fills the hole in the 3D model. One advantage of the disclosed repair engine and associated hole repair technique is that the mesh repair engine is capable of generating polygons that fill regions of a 3D model that are not defined. Consequently, an end-user of the mesh repair tool is able to generate watertight 3D models from previously incomplete and non-watertight 3D models.