Topological segmentation of discrete surfaces

An approach to the segmentation of a discrete 3-D object into a structure of characteristic topological primitives with attached qualitative features is proposed. This structure can be seen as a qualitative description of the object. The approach concentrates on topological properties of discrete surfaces. These surfaces may correspond to the external surface of the objects, or to the skeleton surface. The labeling algorithm is based on very local computations, allowing massively parallel and real-time computations.<<ETX>>