TIN GENERATION FROM DEM

[Chaitanya S. Rajguru]

Hi,

I need to generate a TIN (triangulated/triangular irregular network) from rasterdata (DEM). I am looking for any help on this.

My needs are not very stringent; extreme accuracy is not a necessity, while
simplicity will be very useful. I would like to end up with few triangles
and a database that can be easily manipulated, if possible. The algorithm
need not be very sophisticated (e.g. "enter max. no. of triangles, max. no.
of vertices, max. tolerance (vertical), min. separation betn. triangulation
vertices, min. angle in each triangle and 10 other parameters").

To me it seems like this includes two steps:
    1. select the most significant points in the DEM for triangulation,
    2. generate the triangle descriptions given these points.

I have located some papers on triangulation that do the job. But they are terse
and the methods look a bit complex to code easily.

If anyone has any experiences in this, or even better, an algorithm and/or code
to share, I would be very glad to hear from you. I could post it later to the
list or send it to anyone who would like to get a copy.

Thanks a lot.

-Raj

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			Chaitanya S. Rajguru

Mobile And Portable Radio		 rajguruc at vttcf.cc.vt.edu
  Research Group			 raj at mprg1.mprg.ee.vt.edu
Dept. of Electrical Engg.		 (703) 231-4160
VPI&SU (Virginia Tech)
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