US 6,982,710 B2
System and method to obtain surface structures of multi-dimensional objects, and to represent those surface structures for animation, transmission and display
Ioan Alexandru Salomie, Brussels (Belgium)
Assigned to Interuniversitair Micro-Elektronica Centrum (IMEC vzw), Leuven (Belgium)
Filed on Jan. 07, 2002, as Appl. No. 10/41,515.
Claims priority of provisional application 60/303680, filed on Jul. 06, 2001.
Claims priority of provisional application 60/260006, filed on Jan. 05, 2001.
Claims priority of application No. 0117157 (GB), filed on Jul. 16, 2001.
Prior Publication US 2003/0052875 A1, Mar. 20, 2003
Int. Cl. G06T 17/00 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 345—420 30 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method of preparing data for displaying a surface of an n-dimensional body, n being at least 3, the method comprising the steps of:
obtaining an n-dimensional discrete mesh representation of the surface, the mesh representation of the surface comprising a plurality of boundary nodes, each boundary node lying on or adjacent to the surface, each boundary node being associated with connectivity information comprising representations of up to (n−1) incoming and/or up to (n−1) outgoing directions towards up to 2*(n−1) adjacent boundary nodes adjacent to the said boundary node, the directions being defined in such a way that the cross product of the up to n−1 incoming or outgoing directions associated with any boundary node represents a further vector which points away from the surface at that boundary node.