Open Access

Matthias Nieser, Ulrich Reitebuch, Konrad Polthier

• Despite the success of quad-based 2D surface parameterization methods, effective parameterization algorithms for 3D volumes with cubes, i.e. hexahedral elements, are still missing. CubeCover is a first approach which provides both, a consistent theoretical framework for volume parameterization plus a full pipeline for generating a hexahedral tessellation of a given volume with boundary aligned cubes which are guided by a frame field. The input of CubeCover is a tetrahedral volume mesh. First, a frame field is designed with manual input from the designer. It guides the interior and boundary layout of the parameterization. Then, the parameterization and the hexahedral mesh are computed so as to align with the given frame field. CubeCover has similarities to the QuadCover algorithm and extends it from 2D surfaces to 3D volumes. The paper also provides theoretical results for 3D hexahedral parameterizations and analyses topological properties of the appropriate function space.