CyberTape: an interactive measurement tool on polyhedral surface

Polyhedral mesh surfaces are widely utilized to represent objects reconstructed from 3D ranged images. In computer-aided engineering, it is desired not only to observe but also measure these three-dimensional (3D) objects. This paper presents an approach to measure the curve distance between two points on a polyhedral surface in the manner that simulates dragging a tapeline at the two points. After generating the initial measurement curve through the leading points in linear computing time, an iteration algorithm is presented to approximate stretching the measurement curve on the given polyhedral surface; as an option, the obtained measurement curve can be further stretched to leave the measured surface in some concave places-this looks like what a tapeline behaves in reality. This novel interactive tool allows users to perform measurement tasks in an intuitive and natural way in virtual space. Our implementation algorithm can be completed in real time on a standard PC. At the end of the paper, applications of this tool are given to demonstrate its functionality. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.