Make it Simpler : Structure-aware mesh decimation of large scale models

Abstract: A 3D-model consists out of triangles, and in many cases, the amount of triangles are unnecessarily large for the application of the model. If the camera is far away from a model, why should all triangles be there when in reality it would make sense to only show the contour of the model? Mesh decimation is often used to solve this problem, and its goal is to minimize the amount of triangles while still keep the visual representation intact. Having the decimation algorithm being structure aware, i.e. having the algorithm aware of where the important parts of the model are, such as corners, is of great benefit when doing extreme simplification. The algorithm can then decimate large, almost planar parts, to only a few triangles while keeping the important features detailed. This thesis aims to describe the development of a structure aware decimation algorithm for the company Spotscale, a company specialized in creating 3D-models of drone footage.