Interpolating polyhedral models using intrinsic shape parameters

Metamorphosis, or morphing, is the gradual transformation of one shape into another. It generally consists of two subproblems: the correspondence problem and the interpolation problem. This paper presents a solution to the interpolation problem of transforming one polyhedral model into another. It is an extension of the intrinsic shape interpolation scheme (T. W. Sederberg, P. Gao, G. Wang and H. Mu, '2-D shape blending: an intrinsic solution to the vertex path problem, SIGGRAPH '93, pp. 15-18.) for 2D polygons. Rather than considering a polyhedron as a set of independent points or faces, our solution treats a polyhedron as a graph representing the interrelations between faces. Intrinsic shape parameters, such as dihedral angles and edge lengths that interrelate the vertices and faces in the two graphs, are used for interpolation. This approach produces more satisfactory results than the linear or cubic curve paths would, and is translation and rotation invariant. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.