vtkHull

Section: Visualization Toolkit Graphics Classes

Usage

vtkHull is a filter which will produce an n-sided convex hull given a set of n planes. (The convex hull bounds the input polygonal data.) The hull is generated by squeezing the planes towards the input vtkPolyData, until the planes just touch the vtkPolyData. Then, the resulting planes are used to generate a polyhedron (i.e., hull) that is represented by triangles.

The n planes can be defined in a number of ways including 1) manually specifying each plane; 2) choosing the six face planes of the input's bounding box; 3) choosing the eight vertex planes of the input's bounding box; 4) choosing the twelve edge planes of the input's bounding box; and/or 5) using a recursively subdivided octahedron. Note that when specifying planes, the plane normals should point outside of the convex region.

The output of this filter can be used in combination with vtkLODActor to represent a levels-of-detail in the LOD hierarchy. Another use of this class is to manually specify the planes, and then generate the polyhedron from the planes (without squeezing the planes towards the input). The method GenerateHull() is used to do this.

To create an instance of class vtkHull, simply invoke its constructor as follows

  obj = vtkHull

Methods

The class vtkHull has several methods that can be used. They are listed below. Note that the documentation is translated automatically from the VTK sources, and may not be completely intelligible. When in doubt, consult the VTK website. In the methods listed below, obj is an instance of the vtkHull class.