Morse cell decomposition and parametrization of surfaces from point clouds

Abstract

An algorithm for the reconstruction of a surface from a point sample is presented. It proceeds directly from the point-cloud to obtain a cellular decomposition of the surface derived from a Morse function. No intermediate triangulation or local implicit equations are used, saving on computation time and reconstruction-induced artifices. No a priori knowledge of surface topology, density or regularity of its point sample is required to run the algorithm. The results are a piecewise parametrization of the surface as a union of Morse cells, suitable for tasks such as noise-filtering or mesh-independent reparametrization, and a cell complex of small rank determining the surface topology. The algorithm can be applied to smooth surfaces with or without boundary, embedded in an ambient space of any dimension.