Computing unique three-dimensional object aspects representation

This paper presents a new method for representing two-dimensional (2-D) views of three-dimensional (3-D) objects based on aspect graphs. Each view is represented as a unique tree that is further encoded as a string of numbers, different for each topologically different view. This method enables a consistent and efficient way of indexing the aspects in an image structure graph or an aspect database. The objects considered in the paper are polyhedral solids, but the method can be easily extended to any class of objects. Furthermore, the complexities and experimental results for the sequential and parallel versions are presented. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Inc.