Data structures for encoding triangulated irregular networks

Abstract Triangulated Irregular Networks are the most common form of digital surface model. They are based on a decomposition of the surface into a set of non-overlapping triangular patches. In the paper, we consider the problem of the internal representation of triangular subdivisions. We describe four different data structures, which are especially well-suited to represent triangular grids. Algorithms for solving three basic problems on triangulated irregular networks, namely the point-in-triangulation, the vertex-neighbor and the edge-neighbor problems, are described, and their time complexity is evaluated.