Robust Smooth Feature Extraction from Point Clouds
The Visual Computer 2008
Volume 24, Issue 6, Pages 449-462

Joel Daniels II
Linh Ha
Tilo Ochotta
Claudio Silva
Abstract

Defining sharp features in a 3D model facilitates a better understanding of the surface and aids geometric processing and graphics applications, such as reconstruction, filtering, simplification, reverse engineering, visualization, and non-photo realism. We present a robust method that identifies sharp features in a point-based model by returning a set of smooth spline curves aligned along the edges. Our feature extraction leverages the concepts of Robust Moving Least Squares to locally project points to potential features. The algorithm processes these points to construct arc length parameterized spline curves fit using an iterative refinement method, aligning smooth and continuous curves through the feature points. We demonstrate the benefits of our method with three applications: surface segmentation, surface meshing and point-based compression.

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