Smooth Subdivision Surfaces over Multiple Meshes

Musialski,P., Tobler,R.F., Maierhofer,S.

Abstract:
Standard subdivision rules, such as Catmull-Clark and Loop allow the creation of smooth surfaces with $C^2$ continuity over almost the whole domain except at extraordinary vertices. Normally, the subdivision schemes are limited to one mesh and need special rules for handling the boundaries of the domain. This issue leads to complications in straightforward approaches to compose objects out of multiple joined meshes. We propose a new method for stitching control meshes at common faces. The new approach uses the stitching information to smoothly subdivide the meshes across the stitching edges, while maintaining the meshes as separate units in memory. This makes it possible to compose large, complex geometries using simple components, without the necessity to subdivide the complete mesh down to the same detail level.