The winged edge data structure is a data representation used to describe polygon models in computer graphics. It explicitly describes the geometry and topology of faces, edges, and vertices when three or more surfaces come together and meet at a common edge. The ordering is such that the surfaces are ordered counter-clockwise with respect to the innate orientation of the intersection edge. Moreover the representation allows numerically unstable situations like that depicted below.
The winged edge data structure allows for quick traversal between faces, edges, and vertices due to the explicitly linked structure of the network. This rich form of specifying an unstructured grid is in contrast to simpler specifications of polygon meshes such as a node and element list, or the implied connectivity of a regular grid.
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Famous quotes containing the words winged and/or edge:
“But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity:
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.”
—Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
“The real risks for any artist are taken ... in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what it is possible to think. Books become good when they go to this edge and risk falling over it—when they endanger the artist by reason of what he has, or has not, artistically dared.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)