Converting Molecular Meshes into Smooth Interpolatory Spline Solid Models for Fabricating Physical Visualizations

by
Joel Daniels

Advised by
Elaine Cohen

Advanced multi-level biological structures have been explored within computer graphic environments intended for visualization. Our project returns physical models to structural molecular biologists by embedding several views of a data set within a single physical model, thus reviving tactile feedback.

The paper discusses converting homogenous working environments capable of utilizing the tools provided by modeling software packages. Our system converts a molecular triangular mesh into a spline model, smoothing artifacts of the polyhedral representation while preserving original data through point interpolation. The conversion efforts focus on developing an algorithm to smoothly stitch boundaries and corners of the spline surfaces, in order to create a near G(1) continuous model.