Polygons
Activities

Describe ways of using 2D shapes to model 3D objects

Essential Question:
What happens to a polygon as we increase its number of sides?



Presentation

An Introduction to 3D Modeling: Part 2



Concepts

  1. Surfaces with straight edges can be expressed as types of polygons
    polygons
    Image from mathopenref.com
  2. Explore Polygon Meshes
    A polygon mesh is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling. The faces usually consist of triangles (triangle mesh), quadrilaterals, or other simple convex polygons, since this simplifies rendering, but may also be composed of more general concave polygons, or polygons with holes.

    The study of polygon meshes is a large sub-field of computer graphics and geometric modeling. Different representations of polygon meshes are used for different applications and goals. The variety of operations performed on meshes may include Boolean logic, smoothing, simplification, and many others. Network representations, "streaming" and "progressive" meshes, are used to transmit polygon meshes over a network. Volumetric meshes are distinct from polygon meshes in that they explicitly represent both the surface and volume of a structure, while polygon meshes only explicitly represent the surface (the volume is implicit). As polygonal meshes are extensively used in computer graphics, algorithms also exist for ray tracing, collision detection, and rigid-body dynamics of polygon meshes.




Video

3D Print Canal House



Other Resources