Tri-Dexel Volumetric Modeling for Haptic Sculpting and Virtual Prototyping of Complex Surfaces

This paper presents a new tri-dexel volumetric modeling method for representing complex geometric models in applications such as haptic virtual sculpting and product prototyping. A tri-dexel model consists of three overlapping dexel models in X, Y, and Z axis directions, respectively. Detailed algorithms of eliminating inconsistency in a tri-dexel model and reconstructing a water-tight polyhedral surface model from a tri-dexel model are discussed in this paper. Compared to the traditional voxel model data structure and dexel model data structure, the proposed tri-dexel data structure provides a better alternative geometric modeling method for certain applications. The proposed techniques can be used as a geometric representation kernel in CAD/CAM systems and CNC process simulation. #