Get border edges of mesh - in winding order

Question

I have a triangulated mesh. Assume it looks like an bumpy surface. I want to be able to find all edges that fall on the surrounding border of the mesh. (forget about inner verti

Answer 1

Well as the saying goes - get it working - then get it working better. I noticed on my above example it assumes all the edges in the edges array do in fact link up in a nice border. This may not be the case in the real world (as I have discovered from my input files i am using!) In fact some of my input files actually have many polygons and all need borders detected. I also wanted to make sure the winding order is correct. So I have fixed that up as well. see below. (Feel I am making headway at last!)

    private static List OrganizeEdges(List edges, List positions)
    {
        var visited = new Dictionary();
        var edgeList = new List();
        var resultList = new List();
        var nextIndex = -1;
        while (resultList.Count < edges.Count)
        {
            if (nextIndex < 0)
            {
                for (int i = 0; i < edges.Count; i += 2)
                {
                    if (!visited.ContainsKey(i))
                    {
                        nextIndex = edges[i];
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }

            for (int i = 0; i < edges.Count; i += 2)
            {
                if (visited.ContainsKey(i))
                    continue;

                int j = i + 1;
                int k = -1;
                if (edges[i] == nextIndex)
                    k = j;
                else if (edges[j] == nextIndex)
                    k = i;

                if (k >= 0)
                {
                    var edge = edges[k];
                    visited[i] = true;
                    edgeList.Add(nextIndex);
                    edgeList.Add(edge);
                    nextIndex = edge;
                    i = 0;
                }
            }

            // calculate winding order - then add to final result.
            var borderPoints = new List();
            edgeList.ForEach(ei => borderPoints.Add(positions[ei]));
            var winding = CalculateWindingOrder(borderPoints);
            if (winding > 0)
                edgeList.Reverse();

            resultList.AddRange(edgeList);
            edgeList = new List();
            nextIndex = -1;
        }

        return resultList;
    }




    /// 

    /// returns 1 for CW, -1 for CCW, 0 for unknown.
    /// 
    public static int CalculateWindingOrder(IList points)
    {
        // the sign of the 'area' of the polygon is all we are interested in.
        var area = CalculateSignedArea(points);
        if (area < 0.0)
            return 1;
        else if (area > 0.0)
            return - 1;        
        return 0; // error condition - not even verts to calculate, non-simple poly, etc.
    }

    public static double CalculateSignedArea(IList points)
    {
        double area = 0.0;
        for (int i = 0; i < points.Count; i++)
        {
            int j = (i + 1) % points.Count;
            area += points[i].X * points[j].Y;
            area -= points[i].Y * points[j].X;
        }
        area /= 2.0f;

        return area;
    }