Light-Reflection Analysis Method for 3D Surface Damage Identification

Abstract

The article introduces a new high resolution 3D mesh comparison method that can be used for 3D object surface analysis. A need of 3D mesh analysis is evident in many procedures in engineering, medical or strictly graphical applications. A typical 3D object scanning process produces a high resolution 3D triangle mesh describing the surface of the object. Surface analysis based on this kind of material is usually complex or inaccurate, because each 3D mesh vertex must be identified, positioned and analyzed. A solution proposed in the paper is focused on using native 3D mesh rendering processes for mesh analysis, especially in the surface damage identification field. 3D graphical acceleration hardware and Pixel/Vertex Shaders technology will be used to prepare sets of 2D images—generated with natively 3D accelerated but specially modified light reflection rendering technique. Images then will be analyzed by comparing their 2D reflections with correct object patterns to find any damage-caused differences. The method has proven very quick to calculate and easy to apply; the test applications were programmed over a standard PC 3D accelerated graphical modules. It can also be flexibly applied, which allows for analyzing only a part of the 3D object surface if needed. Additionally, it can produce very accurate results without any precision lowering mathematical-model assumptions, commonly met and usually necessary to apply in typical 3D triangle mesh analysis.