Patent ID: 8237706

Claim:
A method, operable in processor system, for simplifying 3-Dimensional (3D) mesh data of a mesh by reducing a number of triangles of the mesh, the method comprising: (a) measuring discrete curvature at each point in said 3D mesh data; (b) calculating errors based on distance-curvature error metrics comprising the discrete curvature measured at each point, and sorting the calculated errors in a heap, with errors of relatively high curvature parts of the mesh placed in a rear part of the heap; (c) selecting a minimum error among the calculated errors; (d) contracting an edge of said 3D mesh data corresponding to the minimum error when the minimum error is less than a threshold to obtain a simplified version of said mesh with the number of triangles of an entire mesh area reduced; (e) recalculating an error of a surface neighboring a surface to which the contracted edge belongs; (f) re-sorting said calculated errors in the heap; and repeating steps (c) through (f) until the minimum error is not less than the threshold, whereby simplification of the relative high curvature parts of the mesh is done last.