Abstract: Vertices of an annotation are projected onto a surface of a (2D or 3D) model and reconnected to preserve the original appearance of the annotation. The result of our method is a new set of geometry for the annotation that geometrically conforms to the surface of the model. A plane is defined by the midpoint of the original line segment and the two projected vertices. This plane is used to create the new line segments that conform to the surface, e.g. by doing a “surface walk” between the projected points along the line defined by the intersection of the plane and the surface.

Abstract: A system simplifies a geometric model to accelerate the rendering of the geometric model. A surface description of the geometric model is stored in one or more of the system memories. A wire-frame description of the geometric model is also stored. A surface simplification process alters the surface description to create an approximation of the original surface description. A wire-frame draping process drapes the wire-frame description onto the simplified surface and simplifies one or more of the line segments that are draped, the simplified line segments and the simplified surface description are rendered onto a display device.

Abstract: A computer system and method for simplifying annotations on a surface includes a tolerance process creates a tolerance window lying in a plane and centered on the query point at the end of a test edge and perpendicular to the test edge. The tolerance window is defined by a first tolerance that specifies an amount of first error measured by the distance from a simplified path to an original path in the plane tangent to the surface, and a second tolerance that specifies an amount of second error measure by the distance from the simplified path to the original path in the plane perpendicular to the surface. The original path is a set of original edges on the surface. A point projection process that projects a second end point of one or more second edges onto the plane of the tolerance window. The second edges has the query point also as an end point where the projection of the second end points are projected points.