Robust Construction of Polycube Segmentations via Dual Loops

Abstract

Polycube segmentations for 3D models effectively support a wide variety of applications such as seamless texture mapping, spline fitting, structured multi-block grid generation, and hexahedral mesh construction. However, the automated construction of valid polycube segmentations suffers from robustness issues: state-of-the-art methods are not guaranteed to find a valid solution. In this paper we present DualCube: an iterative algorithm which is guaranteed to return a valid polycube segmentation for 3D models of any genus. Our algorithm is based on a dual representation of polycubes. Starting from an initial simple polycube of the correct genus, together with the corresponding dual loop structure and polycube segmentation, we iteratively refine the polycube, loop structure, and segmentation, while maintaining the correctness of the solution. DualCube is robust by construction: at any point during the iterative process the current segmentation is valid. Its iterative nature furthermore facilitates a seamless trade-off between quality and complexity of the solution. DualCube can be implemented using comparatively simple algorithmic building blocks; our experimental evaluation establishes that the quality of our polycube segmentations is on par with, or exceeding, the state-of-the-art.