The PSurface library

Abstract

We describe PSurface, a C++ library that allows to store and access piecewise linear maps between simplicial surfaces in R^2 and R^3. Piecewise linear maps can be used, e.g., to construct boundary approximations for finite element grids, and grid intersections for domain decomposition methods. In computer graphics the maps allow to build level-of-detail representations as well as texture- and bump maps. The PSurface library can be used as the basis for the implementation of a wide range of algorithms that use piecewise linear maps between triangulated surfaces. A few simple examples are given in this work. We document the data structures and algorithms and show how PSurface is used in the numerical analysis framework Dune and the visualization software Amira.