Geometric structures for three-dimensional shape representation

Different geometric structures are investigated in the context of discrete surface representation. It is shown that minimal representations (i.e., polyhedra) can be provided by a surface-based method using nearest neighbors structures or by a volume-based method using the Delaunay triangulation. Both approaches are compared with respect to various criteria, such as space requirements, computation time, constraints on the distribution of the points, facilities for further calculations, and agreement with the actual shape of the object.