Turning Meshes into B-reps with T-splines

This paper presents the first results of a semi-automatic procedure able to turn tetra-meshes into solid models using T-splines. The paper deals with free-form objects where manual modelling based on NURBS curves and surfaces is not a simple process or could result in approximate reconstructions with significant geometric simplification.The proposed solution relies on a multi-step processing workflow with several conversions and metric accuracy evaluation after each step. First, a closed triangular mesh is turned into a quad mesh, which is also made lighter and cleaner without losing significant level of detail. The quad mesh is then converted into a surface based on T-splines, which are powerful tools to model organic shapes. The final step of the method is the conversion of the closed surface into a novel B-rep based on watertight NURBS surfaces.