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A null-object detection algorithm for constructive solid geometry

Published: 01 July 1984 Publication History

Abstract

Constructive solid geometry (CSG) is the primary scheme used for representing solid objects in many contemporary solid modeling systems. A CSG representation is a binary tree whose nonterminal nodes represent Boolean operations and whose terminal nodes represent primitive solids. This paper deals with algorithms that operate directly on CSG representations to solve two computationally difficult geometric problems—null-object detection (NOD) and same-object detection (SOD). The paper also shows that CSG trees representing null objects may be reduced to null trees through the use of a new concept called primitive redundancy, and that, on average, tree reduction can be done efficiently by a new technique called spatial localization. Primitive redundancy and spatial localization enable a single complex instance of NOD to be converted into a number of simpler subproblems and lead to more efficient algorithms than those previously known.

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Frances Akridge

This paper introduces an algorithm that operates directly on CSG representations to solve two computationally difficult geometric problems: Null-Object Detection (NOD) and Same-Object Detection (SOD). The algorithm, which focuses on NOD, exploits two new concepts—primitive redundancy and spatial localization—which, although not precisely defined, are explained by two- and three-dimensional examples. The computational complexity of the algorithm is not formally analyzed. However, it purports to be superior to the traditional algorithms in cases where nullness is expected. The paper is taken from Tilove's PhD dissertation [1].

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Published In

cover image Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM  Volume 27, Issue 7
July 1984
96 pages
ISSN:0001-0782
EISSN:1557-7317
DOI:10.1145/358105
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 01 July 1984
Published in CACM Volume 27, Issue 7

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  1. computational geometry
  2. constructive geometry
  3. geometric modeling
  4. interference detection

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