EXTENDING THE DOUBLY LINKED FACE LIST FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF 2-PSEUDOMANIFOLDS AND 2-MANIFOLDS WITH BOUNDARIES

Abstract

The Doubly Linked Face List (DLFL) is a data structure for mesh representation that always ensures topological 2-manifold consistency. Furthermore, it uses a minimal amount of computer memory and allows queries to be performed very efficiently. However, the use of the DLFL for the implementation of practical applications is very limited, mainly because of two drawbacks: (1) the DLFL is only able to represent 2-manifold objects; (2) its operators may be ambiguous, modifying the structure in an unexpected way from the user's point of view. In order to overcome these drawbacks, we present the Extended Doubly Linked Face List (XDLFL), which extends the DLFL for the representation of 2-pseudomanifolds and 2-manifolds with boundaries, increasing its applicability for practical software applications. Using these extensions, we also show how to avoid ambiguities in the original DLFL's operators. A new set of intuitive operators for the manipulation of the extensions and for the unambiguous manipulation of the data structure is also presented. The implementation of these extensions is straightforward, since the modifications to the DLFL are trivial and based on behavioral observations of the DLFL's operators. After integrating the extensions to the DLFL, memory usage increases very slightly, while is still smaller than the memory usage of other well-known data structures. Furthermore, queries related to the new extensions, such as whether an edge belongs to a boundary, may be performed very efficiently. The proposed extensions and their operators are very beneficial for applications such as surgery simulation softwares, where the interactions with the models, such as cutting or appending objects to each other, must be performed in an efficient and transparent manner.