Sphere approximation for non-tubular object

Abstract

We study the problem of approximating a 3D object with a union of overlapping spheres. We employ a disk filled with rays that comes from the center of the disk and points outwards. The disk traverses the object to detect collisions with the mesh. These contact points serve to determine the spheres to be created in the boundary of the object. This adjustment is performed by decomposing the volumetric mesh in thin surfaces, which are bounded with a sphere each. Afterwards, the spheres are moved towards the center of the disk and are scaled down to minimize the volumetric error. We evaluate our method with three human models, in particular the torso of the objects.