Geometric Feature Deletion Through Freeform Feature Recognition

Abstract

The deletion of geometric features is a much used operation in the process of shape modeling; by deleting geometric features, the smoothness of a surface can be increased. In this paper, a new method is presented for the deletion of geometric features, which is based on a morphological understanding of the feature. The method first parameterizes the feature and then deletes it using a parameter-based shape manipulation. The advantage of this new method is that a geometric feature can be deleted while maintaining the semantics of both the feature and its embedding shape. To be able to parameterize the feature, an improved version of an existing evolutionary feature recognition procedure is developed, which constructs a feature template that matches a feature on the target model. Application examples are given and the robustness of the method is discussed.