Mesh Thickening

Thickening out a single sheet of triangulation. (For medical purposes etc.)

Methods

1. Move up each vertex according to triangle normal
   • Moves the edges up
   • Edge gaps when convex
   • Vertex overlaps when concave
2. Move vertex according to shared vertex normal
   • Sharpness of edges

Smoother methods:

1. Concave vertices: move along shared vertex normal
2. Convex vertices: move along triangle normal
   • How to fill in the gaps? See offsets

Offsets

Problems

Thickening could lead to self-intersection. But do we always want to solve it (i.e. do we insist on the topology)?