Automatic generation and dynamic modification of triangulated surfaces and Pentahedral Meshes. Application to 3D Modeling of stratified geological volumes

Structural discontinuities, especially normal faults and reverse faults, have been a recurring theme of stratified geological model generation for these years. In this paper, the new Constrained Delaunay Triangulation algorithm for automatically generating triangulated surfaces (TIN) and pentahedral meshes (PEN) is proposed. Unlike the other algorithms that build faults as separate surfaces to cross TIN, the algorithm defines faults as the constrained edges of polygon, and generates Constrained Delaunay Triangulation automatically by the Two Steps Method. Also, the pentahedral meshes are generated based on TIN algorithm and surface spline interpolation is used to fit the unknown z value of the meshes. Finally, the paper introduces an expansion algorithm to modify geological TIN and PEN model dynamically and locally. Those algorithms, validated by various coal geological data with complex geology conditions, are simple, high-efficient, and useful for developing professional mining 3D GIS product.GeologyMathematics, Interdisciplinary ApplicationsRemote SensingEICPCI-S(ISTP)