Meshing Unsigned Distance Fields with Regular Triangulations

Abstract

Unsigned distance fields (UDF) are a versatile, implicit representation of geometry. They can represent surfaces that are not bounding a solid or contain points or curves that are not manifold, for example several sheets meeting along a common curve. Contouring the implicit representation, i.e. turning it into an explicit one, requires finding the zero level set. This is challenging because of the lacking sign information. We present an adaptive re‐sampling approach based on regular triangulations that allows efficiently querying the UDF function at the most important locations. Using a dual contouring approach, information on the topology of the reconstructed surface patches is available during refinement, enabling to increase the resolution in the more critical non‐manifold regions.