We investigate how to define a triangulated ruled surface interpolating two polygonal directrices that will meet a variety of optimization objectives which originate from many CAD/CAM and geometric modeling applications. This optimal triangulation problem is formulated as a combinatorial search problem whose search space however has the size tightly factorial to the numbers of points on the two directrices. To tackle this bound, we introduce a novel computational tool called multilayer directed graph and establish an equivalence between the optimal triangulation and the single-source shortest path problem on the graph. Well known graph search algorithms such as the Dijkstra's are then employed to solve the single-source shortest path problem, which effectively solves the optimal triangulation problem in O(mn) time, where n and m are the numbers of vertices on the two directrices respectively. Numerous experimental examples are provided to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed optimal triangulation problem in a variety of engineering applications.
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