Efficient coding of nontriangular mesh connectivity

We describe an efficient algorithm for coding the connectivity information of general polygon meshes. In contrast to most existing algorithms which are suitable only for triangular meshes, and pay a penalty for treatment of nontriangular faces, this algorithm codes the connectivity information in a direct manner. Our treatment of the special case of triangular meshes is shown to be equivalent to the Edgebreaker algorithm. Using our methods, any triangle mesh may be coded in no more than 2 bits/triangle (approximately 4 bits/vertex), a quadrilateral mesh in no more than 3.5 bits/quad (approximately 3.5 bits/vertex), and the most common case of a quad mesh with few triangles in no more than 4 bits/polygon.