Abstract

We introduce a simplification algorithm for meshes composed of quadrilateral elements. Our technique can handle models with sharp features, and can be used for re-meshing polygonal, i.e. tri- and quad-dominant, meshes into fully quad-meshes. It is reminiscent of edge-collapse based methods for triangle meshes, but takes a novel appraoch to the challenging problem of maintaining the quad structure during level-of-detail creation. The method consists of a set of unit operations applied to the dual of the mesh, each designed to maintain the quadrilateral structure and topology of the mesh. Geometric shape is maintained by a simple extension of a quadric error metric to quad meshes. The technique is straightforward to implement and efficient enough to be applied to real-world models.

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