Octree-Based Decimation of Marching Cubes Surfaces

The Marching Cubes (MC) algorithm is a commonly used method for generating isosurfaces. The MC algorithm also generates an excessively large number of triangles to represent an isosurface. Generating many triangles increases the rendering time which is directly proportional to the number of triangles. This paper presents a decimation method to reduce the number of triangles generated by the MC algorithm. Decimation is carried out within the framework of the MC algorithm before creating a large number of triangles. Four major steps comprise the reported implementation of the algorithm: a) surface tracking, b) merging, c) crack patching, and d) triangulation. Surface tracking is an enhanced implementation of the MC algorithm. Starting from a seed point, the surface tracker visits only those cells likely to compose part of the desired isosurface. This results in up to approximately 80% computational saving The cells making up the extracted surface are stored in an octree that is further p...