Multiresolution Modeling: Survey and Future Opportunities

For twenty years, it has been clear that many datasets are excessively complex for applications such as real-time display, and that techniques for controlling the level of detail of models are crucial.More recently, there has been considerable interest in techniques for the automatic simplification of highly detailed polygonalmodels into faithful approximations using fewer polygons. Several effective techniques for the automatic simplification of polygonal models have been developed in recent years. This report begins with a survey of the most notable available algorithms. Iterative edge contraction algorithms are of particular interest because they induce a certain hierarchical structure on the surface. An overview of this hierarchical structure is presented,including a formulation relating it to minimum spanning tree construction algorithms. Finally, we will consider the most significant directions in which existing simplification methods can be improved, and a summary of other potential applications for the hierarchies resulting from simplification.