Efficient coding of non-triangular mesh connectivity

Abstract

Describes an efficient algorithm for coding the connectivity information of general polygon meshes. In contrast to most existing algorithms, which are suitable only for triangular meshes and pay a penalty for the treatment of non-triangular faces, this algorithm codes the connectivity information in a direct manner. Our treatment of the special case of triangular meshes is shown to be equivalent to the Edgebreaker algorithm. Using our methods, any triangle mesh may be coded in no more than two bits/triangle (approximately four bits/vertex), a quadrilateral mesh in no more than 3.5 bits/quad (approximately 3.5 bits/vertex), and the most common case of a quadrilateral mesh with few triangles in no more than four bits/polygon.