Voronoi-based feature curves extraction for sampled singular surfaces

The detection and reconstruction of feature curves in surfaces from a point cloud data is a challenging problem because most of the known theories for smooth surfaces break down at these places. The features such as boundaries, sharp ridges and corners, and curves where multiple surface patches intersect creating non-manifold points are often considered important geometries for further processing. As a result, they need to be preserved in a reconstruction of the sampled surface from its point sample. The problem becomes harder in the presence of noise. We propose a robust Voronoi-based pipeline that engages several substeps consisting of approaches proposed originally for smooth case. We modify or enhance them to handle features in singular surfaces. The experimental results provide the evidence that the method is effective. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.