Patent ID: 8121415

Claim:
A method of forming a combined feature boundary based on boundaries of first and second overlapping features, comprising: dividing the boundaries of the first and second overlapping features into line segments of known shape; identifying crossing points formed by the line segments; calculating parametric coordinates of the crossing points and determining a sequence of crossing point evaluation based on the parametric coordinates; calculating a first cross product based on the line segments forming a first crossing point in the determined sequence; choosing a first path of the combined feature boundary according to the a mathematical sign of the first cross product, the first path extending from the first crossing point to the second crossing point in the determined sequence; calculating a second cross product based on the line segments forming a second crossing point in the sequence; choosing a second path of the combined feature boundary extending from the second crossing point according to a mathematical sign of the second cross product, wherein the combined feature boundary includes the first and second crossing points and portions of at least one of the first and second feature boundaries defining the first and second paths.