Surface Reconstruction From File

The Reconstruct Surface from Table option in the Geometry menu allows you to generate surfaces by using various interpolation methods on defined XYZ coordinates in the table.

Contour Map

You can generate a surface using contour map files (supported file format: *.dxf, *.dwg) that are polylines (edges of the model). Methods of interpolation with the contour maps are explained below:

Point Cloud

You can generate a surfaces by using various interpolation methods on defined XYZ coordinates (supported file formats: *.txt, .csv, *.xyz, *.asc). Methods of interpolation are shown below:

Methods of Interpolation

Triangulate

The resulting surface is generated through linear triangulation and must include all defined XYZ coordinates as entered by the user.

Interpolate

A grid is generated from the farthest x, y and z coordinates entered by the user. Within the grid, various interpolation methods can be used to generate a surface based on the entered points and the surface does not need to intersect every point entered by the user.

The user may use any of the following Interpolation methods:

• Inverse Distance
• Thin-Plate Spline
• Chugh
• Local Thin-Plate Spline
• Linear/Triangulation
• Gaussian
• Multi Quadratic
• Polyharmonic Spline
• Compactly Supported

For details see the Surface Reconstruction topic in the theory section.

Add Corners

Add corners can be used If the user wants to add additional corners in their imported geometry coordinates.

Example:

For instance, if the user inputs a triangle with coordinate (0,0), (10,10), and (0,10) and presses presses 'Add corners', it should insert a fourth point with (10,0).

The determination of the corner point depends on (min_x, min_y) (min_x, max_y) (max_x, max_y) (max_x, min_y). Out of these four options, it chooses the missing coordinate and adds the corner of that selection.

Translate

Allows users to shift the constructed surface where the origin moves to user-defined xyz coordinate. The origin is labelled on the geometry window on the right.

Resolution

The surface reconstruction resolution defines the number of sample points used in the interpolation method to generate the surface. Generally, the more sample points that are used the more detailed the generated surface will become. However, this is highly dependent on the available data points input by the user to conduct the interpolation. Coarse represents the lowest number of sample points and Fine is the highest.