O-Snap: Optimization-based snapping for modeling architecture (Siggraph 2013 Test Talk)

In this article, we introduce a novel reconstruction and modeling pipeline to create polygonal models from unstructured point clouds. We propose an automatic polygonal reconstruction that can then be interactively refined by the user. An initial model is automatically created by extracting a set of RANSAC-based locally fitted planar primitives along with their boundary polygons, and then searching for local adjacency relations among parts of the polygons. The extracted set of adjacency relations is enforced to snap polygon elements together, while simultaneously fitting to the input point cloud and ensuring the planarity of the polygons. This optimization-based snapping algorithm may also be interleaved with user interaction. This allows the user to sketch modifications with coarse and loose 2D strokes, as the exact alignment of the polygons is automatically performed by the snapping. The generated models are coarse, offer simple editing possibilities by design, and are suitable for interactive 3D applications like games, virtual environments, etc. The main innovation in our approach lies in the tight coupling between interactive input and automatic optimization, as well as in an algorithm that robustly discovers the set of adjacency relations.