GPGPU: Fast and easy 3D Distance Field computation on GPU

by Kent Roger Fagerjord, Tatyana Lochehina

Paper (4.2M)

3D Distance Field of Plane model (58k polygons): distance to the surface is color coded, increasing from red to green and to blue. Time taken to compute the distance field with resolution 217x219x212 using our algorithm is 0,03 sec.	3D Distance Field of Bender model (12k polygons): time taken to compute the distance field on 150x150x50 grid using our algorithm is 0,02 sec.	3D Distance Field of Catapult model (9.6k polygons): time taken to compute the distance field with resolution 208x204x222 using our algorithm is 0,14 sec.

We present a Distance Field computation algorithm that is fast, easy and is created specially for parallel computing devices. Given a triangulated mesh in 3D, we compute a minimum possible grid around this mesh and the distnace field around triangles skipping those triangles that are not significant. Our algorithm works fine with all kind of triangulated meshes (oriented, not oriented, closed, open and so on). A number of experiments were conducted to evaluate the algorithm and its implementation. Experiments showed that we could run collision avoidance simulations in real-time with meshes containing several millions of triangles.

Kent Roger Fagerjord

Tatyana Lochehina