Polygon mesh

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In 3D computer graphics and solid modeling, a polygon mesh is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object's surface. It simplifies rendering, as in a wire-frame model. The faces usually consist of triangles (triangle mesh), quadrilaterals (quads), or other simple convex polygons (n-gons). A polygonal mesh may also be more generally composed of concave polygons, or even polygons with holes.

The study of polygon meshes is a large sub-field of computer graphics (specifically 3D 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 (Constructive solid geometry), smoothing, simplification, and many others. Algorithms also exist for ray tracing, collision detection, and rigid-body dynamics with polygon meshes. If the mesh's edges are rendered instead of the faces, then the model becomes a wireframe model.

Several methods exist for mesh generation, including the marching cubes algorithm.^[1]

Volumetric meshes are distinct from polygon meshes in that they explicitly represent both the surface and interior region of a structure, while polygon meshes only explicitly represent the surface (the volume is implicit).