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Polygon Mesh




A polygon mesh or Unstructured Grid is a ''collection of vertices and Polygon s'' that define the shape of an Polyhedral object in 3D Computer Graphics .

Meshes usually consists of Triangle s, Quadrilateral s or other simple convex polygons, since this simplifies Rendering , but they can also contain objects made of general polygons with optional holes.

Examples of internal representations of an Unstructured Grid :

  • Simple list of vertices with a list of indices describing which vertices are linked to form polygons; additional information can describe a list of holes

  • List of vertices + list of edges (pairs of indices) + list of polygons that link edges

  • Winged Edge data structure


The choice of the data structure is governed by the application: it's easier to deal with triangles than general polygons, especially in Computational Geometry . For optimized algorithms it is necessary to have a fast access to topological information such as edges or neighboring faces; this requires more complex structures such as the winged-edge representation.


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