Operations
There are a very large number of operations which may be performed on polygonal meshes. Some of these roughly correspond to real-world manipulations of 3D objects, while others do not.
Polygonal mesh operations:
Creations - Create new geometry from some other mathematical object
Loft - generate a mesh by sweeping a shape along a path
Extrude - same as loft, except the path is always a line
Revolve - generate a mesh by revolving (rotating) a shape around an axis
Marching cubes - algorithm to construct a mesh from an implicit function
Binary Creations - Create a new mesh from a binary operation of two other meshes
Add - boolean addition of two meshes
Subtract - boolean subtraction of two meshes
Intersect - boolean intersection
Union - boolean union of two meshes
Attach - attach one mesh to another (removing the interior surfaces)
Chamfer - create a beveled surface which smoothly connected two surfaces
Deformations - Move only the verticies of a mesh
Deform - systematically move verticies (according to certain functions or rules)
Weighted Deform - move verticies based on localized weights per vertex
Morph - move verticies smoothly between a source and target mesh
Bend - move verticies to "bend" the object
Twist - move verticies to "twist" the object
Manipulations - Modify the geometry of the mesh, but not necessarily topology
Displace - introduce additional geometry based on a "displacement map" from the surface
Simplify - systematically remove and average verticies
Subdivide - smooth a course mesh by subdividing the mesh (Catmull-Clark, etc.)
Convex Hull - generate another mesh which minimally encloses a given mesh (think shrink-wrap)
Cut - create a hole in a mesh surface
Stitch - close a hole in a mesh surface
Measurements - Compute some value of the mesh
Volume - compute the 3D volume of a mesh (discrete volumetric integral)
Surface Area - compute the surface area of a mesh (discrete surface integral)
Collision Detection - determine if two complex meshes in motion have collided
Fitting - construct a parametric surface (NURBS, bicubic spline) by fitting it to a given mesh
Point-Surface Distance - compute distance from a point to the mesh
Line-Surface Distance - compute distance from a line to the mesh
Line-Surface Intersection - compute intersection of line and the mesh
Cross Section - compute the curves created by a cross-section of a plane through a mesh
Centroid - compute the centroid, geometric center, of the mesh
Center-of-Mass - compute the center of mass, balance point, of the mesh
Read more about this topic: Polygonal Modeling
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