This bibliography includes references to papers, articles, and books on boundary representation methods for three-dimensional objects in solid modeling applications, such as CAD and radiosity rendering. A boundary representation of a solid, three-dimensional object represents the object by its surface boundary. In most applications, this representation consists of vertices, edges, and faces. The faces (polygons) are typically planar, but may also be curved. Boundary representations incorporate a variety of data structures, including the much-discussed winged-edge data structure. Others include the quad-edge, vertex-edge, and face-edge data structures, plus numerous variations. Each data structure has its merits and disadvantages, depending on the application. The tradeoff is between memory requirements and average access time for geometric data of interest. Winged-edge data structures are frequently discussed in the radiosity literature as the preferred representation for three-dimensional models. This is partly because winged-edge models make it relatively easy to implement adaptive mesh refinement techniques. Similar arguments apply to many finite mesh analysis applications. Unfortunately, a comprehensive discussion of boundary representation methods is not to be found in the literature, particularly if you are interesting in actually implementing them for solid modeling applications. The best you can do is to read the numerous papers that have been written and piece together a model for your implementation. Speaking from experience, the process will be most likely painful.
Keywords:
winged edge data structures, boundary representation
Author Comments:
This bibliography was prepared to alleviate the initial pain of a comprehensive literature search. It is undoubtably incomplete – the literature on solid modeling is vast and diverse. On the other hand, you have to start somewhere ... Thanks to Robin Forrest of the University of East Anglia for contributing more than 40 references from his boundary representation database.
