Abstand: Distance Visualization for Geometric Analysis

The need to analyze and visualize differences of very similar objects arises in many research areas: mesh compression, scan alignment, nominal/actual value comparison, quality management, and surface reconstruction to name a few. Although the problem to visualize some distances may sound simple, the creation of a good scene setup including the geometry, materials, colors, and the representation of distances is challenging. Our contribution to this problem is an application which optimizes the work-flow to visualize distances. We propose a new classification scheme to group typical scenarios. For each scenario we provide reasonable defaults for color tables, material settings, etc. Completed with predefined file exporters, which are harmonized with commonly used rendering and viewing applications, the presented application is a valuable tool. Based on web technologies it works out-of-the-box and does not need any configuration or installation. All users who have to analyze and document 3D geometry will stand to benefit from our new application.