Algorithm 964: An Efficient Algorithm to Compute the Genus of Discrete Surfaces and Applications to Turbulent Flows

摘要

A simple and efficient algorithm to numerically compute the genus of surfaces of three-dimensional objects using the Euler characteristic formula is presented. The algorithm applies to objects obtained by thresholding a scalar field in a structured-collocated grid and does not require any triangulation of the data. This makes the algorithm fast, memory efficient, and suitable for large datasets. Applications to the characterization of complex surfaces in turbulent flows are presented to illustrate the method.