Abstract: Systems and methods are presented for generating surface lines on mesh surfaces and voxel objects. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention directed to mesh surfaces, such methods include preprocessing a triangle mesh data structure, constructing a grid data structure for the triangle mesh object, representing a relationship of triangles and vertices, determining boundary edges and vertices, computing a series of surface points, and generating a surface line. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention this technique can be used to cut a mesh surface along the line generated. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention a surface line can be generated from start point A to end point B along an arbitrary curved surface based on the start point and the direction of a vector from the start point to the end point.

Abstract: Systems and methods for a fully integrated contour editor are presented. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention a 2D interface which allows a user to define and edit contours on one image slice of the data set at a time is provided along with a 3D interface which allows a user to interact with the entire 3D data set. The 2D interface and the 3D interface are fully integrated, and contours defined or edited within the 2D interface are simultaneously displayed in the appropriate location of the 3D data set. The 2D contour can be created and edited with various readily available tools, and a region of interest indicated within the 3D data set causes the relevant 2D slice to be displayed in the 2D interface with an indication of the user selected area of interest. In exemplary embodiments of the present invention, systems can automatically generate contours based on user definition of a top and bottom contour, and can implement contour remapping across multiple data sets.