Feature Lines for Illustrating Medical Surface Models: Mathematical Background and Survey

TL;DR

This paper offers a comprehensive tutorial and survey on feature line visualization techniques for medical surface models, including mathematical foundations, discrete geometry adaptation, and practical guidelines for implementation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed mathematical background and a comparative survey of feature line methods, enabling re-implementation and application guidance for medical surface visualization.

Findings

Provides a unified mathematical framework for feature lines

Summarizes and compares different feature line algorithms

Suggests guidelines for selecting feature lines based on surface type

Abstract

This paper provides a tutorial and survey for a specific kind of illustrative visualization technique: feature lines. We examine different feature line methods. For this, we provide the differential geometry behind these concepts and adapt this mathematical field to the discrete differential geometry. All discrete differential geometry terms are explained for triangulated surface meshes. These utilities serve as basis for the feature line methods. We provide the reader with all knowledge to re-implement every feature line method. Furthermore, we summarize the methods and suggest a guideline for which kind of surface which feature line algorithm is best suited. Our work is motivated by, but not restricted to, medical and biological surface models.