A haptics-guided hole-filling system based on triangular mesh

Abstract

Defects of primitive models such as holes are not uncommon in the process of reconstructing a physical object model through an optical scanner. Most hole-filling methods are focused on repairing model automatically. However automatic technologies cannot give satisfactory results when dealing with complex holes because points on the hole boundaries are error prone and must be pre-processed before any automatic methods be applied. In order to provide a more intuitive and efficient tool for model reconstruction in reverse engineering (RE) a novel hole-filling system with haptic characteristic based on triangular mesh is implemented compared with traditional unnatural mouse-based computer interfaces that can not be used to edit point clouds intuitively. Smoothing and stitching operations based on haptics are proposed to modify error-prone hole boundaries and simplify complex holes. A sculpting operation based on loop subdivision is developed to allow a user to deform the surface in the multi-sided and multi-level polygonal domains. By employing both automatic and interactive methods for hole filling, this system is more efficient and robust. A primitive prototype system has been implemented and several examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this system.