3D Curve-Skeleton Extraction Algorithm Using a Pseudo-Normal Vector Field

Abstract

A curve skeleton is a line representation of a 3D object. It is useful in many applications, such as animation, shape matching or scientific analysis. The method described in this paper extracts a curve skeleton from the vector field which is created inside the 3D object. The topology of the vector field is analyzed to obtain the curve skeleton. In contrast with previous methods, the vector field is calculated using a pseudo-normal vector. Furthermore, by using the proposed skeleton-growing method, the vector field topology need not be computed for every voxel. Therefore, the proposed approach requires significantly less computation compared with previous vector field-based approaches, while still capturing all important parts of 3D object. The proposed method is very useful for any applications, especially real-time applications such as quick animation production and prototyping of graphical systems.