Abstract
The development of methods for storing, manipulating, and rendering large volumes
of data efficiently is a crucial task in several scientific applications, such
as medical image analysis, remote sensing, computer vision, and computer-aided
design. Unless data reduction or compression methods are used, extremely large
data sets cannot be analyzed or visualized in real time. Polygonal surfaces,
typically defined by a set of triangles, are one of the most widely used
representations for geometric models. This paper presents an efficient algorithm
for compressing triangulated models through the construction of triangle strips.
Experimental results show that these strips are significantly better than those
generated by the leading triangle strip algorithms.