Incremental Catmull-Clark subdivision

Abstract

In this paper, a new adaptive method for Catmull-Clark subdivision is introduced. Adaptive subdivision refines specific areas of a model according to user or application needs. Naive adaptive subdivision algorithm changes the connectivity of the mesh, causing geometrical inconsistencies that alter the limit surface. Our method expands the specified region of the mesh such that when it is adaptively subdivided, it produces a smooth surface whose selected area is identical to when the entire mesh is refined. This technique also produces a surface with an increasing level of detail from coarse to fine areas of the surface. We compare our adaptive subdivision with other schemes and present some example applications.