Computing Local Signed Distance Fields for Large Polygonal Models

The signed distance field for a polygonal model is a useful representation that facilitates efficient computation in many visualization and geometric processing tasks. Often it is more effective to build a local distance field only within a narrow band around the surface that holds local geometric information for the model. In this paper, we present a novel technique to construct a volumetric local signed distance field of a polygonal model. To compute the local field efficiently, exactly those cells that cross the polygonal surface are found first through a new voxelization method, building a list of intersecting triangles for each boundary cell. After their neighboring cells are classified, the triangle lists are exploited to compute the local signed distance field with minimized voxel-totriangle distance computations. While several efficient methods for computing the distance field, particularly those harnessing the graphics processing unit's (GPU's) processing power, hav...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: CGF
• Authors: Byungjoon Chang, Deukhyun Cha, Insung Ihm
• Keywords: CGF 2008, Distance Field, Polygonal Models, Signed Distance