MR. STEVEN JAMES WILLIAMS, LPA
Mental Health at Quiet Mill Rd, Raleigh, NC

6853373, Feb 8, 2005

Apr 25, 2001

09/842304

Steven P. Williams - Raleigh NC, US
Herbert Edelsbrunner - Chapel Hill NC, US
Ping Fu - Chapel Hill NC, US

Raindrop Geomagic, Inc. - Durham NC

G06T015/00

345419

Methods, apparatus and computer program products can generate light weight but highly realistic and accurate colored models of three-dimensional colored objects. The colored model may be generated from a second plurality of points that define a coarse digital representation of the surface and at least one texture map containing information derived from a first plurality of colored points that define a fine digital representation of the surface. This derivation is achieved by mapping points within the texture map to the fine digital representation of the three-dimensional surface. Colored scan data may be used to construct the fine digital representation as a triangulated surface (i. e. , triangulation) using a wrapping operation. This triangulated surface may be a two-manifold with or without nonzero boundary and the colored scan data may constitute raw point data with each datum comprising three real numbers (x-,y-, z-coordinates) providing geometric information and three integer numbers (r-,g-,b-values) providing color information. Operations are then performed to create the coarse digital representation from the fine digital representation and also preferably create a plurality a texture maps from the fine and coarse digital representations.