VOLUMETRIC REPRESENTATION : A TECHNIQUE FOR REPRESENTING AND MANIPULATING 3-D OBJECTS

Abstract

Keeping in view the increasing importance of three dimensional display in the field of industrial design, a new volumetric scheme has been developed for representing solids. The three orthogonal views of the solid are mode-lled in terms of rectangles that fit into the outline. Each rectangle is represented by the co-ordinates of its origin; its width and height. This representation is converted into rectangular parallelepipeds by inserting a third dimension. These rectangular parallelepipeds are intersected in space to get the final code. There after, merging operation is performed to eliminate any adjacent parallelepipeds. The scheme proves to be useful in static interference checking, finite element meshing, numerical control, mechanism representation and simulation, robotics etc. The properties of volume, surface and moments can be easily determined. Though the scheme is demanding computationally, its versatility can be increased manifold by supplementing the system with a small auxiliary B-rep facility.