Abstract
Segmentation is a critical and necessary procedure of reverse engineering with the aim of partitioning scanner data or polygonal meshes into meaningful parts. In this paper, an automatic segmentation technique is proposed for triangular meshes with the identification of surface types of the mesh segments according to the following surface's classification: the planar, cylindrical, conical, spherical, and toroidal surfaces, extrusion surfaces, ruled surfaces, and filleted surfaces. Sharp edges are detected and identified as boundaries of segments. An assumption-verification method is developed for extracting the mesh segments which identified according to surface's classification. The sequence of the extraction of the mesh segments is determined according to the dimensions and shapes of the Gauss maps of the segments. The algorithm starts from calculating normal vectors and principle curvatures of the neighborhoods of nearby mesh vertices of the triangle meshes to identify sharp edges and areas with high curvature. Triangles of the segments are assembled based on region growing method where the sharp edges are defined as boundaries of the segments. A fundamental partitioning the surface mesh based on sharp edges allows the accurate identification of the surfaces of the segments based on delicately proposed fitting technique and statistical error distribution.
