Mesh Smoothing via Mean and Median Filtering Applied to Face Normals

Hirokazu Yagou  Yutaka Ohtakey Alexander Belyaev z

 The University of Aizu, Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Fukushima 965-8580, Japan

y z Computer Graphics Group, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Germany
;

Abstract Fig. 1 demonstrates how mesh mean and median filter-

ing schemes developed in this paper do smooth polygonal
This paper presents frameworks to extend the mean and models corrupted by additive random noise. Note that the
median filtering schemes in image processing into smooth- mean filter does not produce mesh shrinkage and that good
ing noisy 3D shapes given by triangle meshes. The frame- sharp features are restored by the median filter.
works consist of the application of the mean and median fil-
ters to face normals on triangle meshes and the edit of mesh
vertex positions to make them fit to the modified normals.
We also give a quantitative evaluation of the proposed
mesh filtering schemes and compare them with conventional
mesh smoothing methods such as the Laplacian smoothing
flow and the mean curvature flow. The quantitative eval-
uation is performed in error metrics on mesh vertices and
normals.
Experimental results demonstrate that our mesh mean
and median filtering methods are more stable than the con-
ventional Laplacian and mean curvature flows. We propose
those new mesh smoothing methods as one possible solution
of a oversmoothing problem.

1 Introduction

We introduce frameworks to extend the mean and me-

Figure 1. T op left: original mesh. T op righ t:noise
dian filtering schemes in image processing [1, 6] into
is added. Bottom left: smoothed by mean ltering.
smoothing noisy 3D shapes given by triangle meshes. The
frameworks consist of two phases: 1) the application of the
mean and median filters to face normals on a triangle mesh
and 2) the edit of mesh vertex positions to make them fit to
the modified normals.
The mean and median filters in image processing are ap-
plied to intensity values of image pixels. Therefore, to ap-
ply the two filters to face normals on triangle meshes, we
consider directions of the face normals as intensity values
of image pixels, and modify or replace the directions at a
filtering process.
 m5051134@u-aizu.ac.jp
y ohtake@mpi-sb.mpg.de
z belyaev@mpi-sb.mpg.de
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Bottom righ t: smoothed by weighted median lter-
ing.
We also give a quantitative evaluation of the proposed
mesh filtering schemes and compare them with conven-
tional mesh smoothing methods such as the Laplacian
smoothing flow [10, 5] and the mean curvature flow [3, 2].
We use two L2 error metrics introduced in [7] and then com-
pare two close meshes by measuring deviations between
corresponding mesh vertices and normals.
Fig. 2 shows an example of a quantitative evaluation of
mesh smoothing methods in the error metrics. For each
smoothing method, the number of smoothing times is equal
 (a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

0.5

Median Filter Median Filter

Mean Filter 0.45
Mean Filter
Laplacian Flow Laplacian Flow
0.025
Mean Curvature Flow Mean Curvature Flow
L2 vertex-position error

0.4
L2 face-normal error

0.35
0.02

0.3

0.015
0.25

0.2
0.01

0.15

0.005 0.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

the number of smoothing times the number of smoothing times

Figure 2. (a) Stanford Bunny with word \Hi" embossed. (b) Noise is added. (c)-(f) Oversmoothing by Laplacian
o w (c), mean curv ature o w(d), iterativ e median lter (e), iterativ e mean lter (f). Bottom left: graphs of L2
vertex-position error betw een original and smoothed models. Bottom right: graphs of L2 face-normal error betw een
original and smoothed models.

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 to 10(optimal number of smoothing times) where the op- tor [3, 2]
timal number of smoothing times is defined according to X
H n(P ) =
3
the minimal value of L 2 vertex-position error. The mean (cot  + cot  )(Q P ): (3)
and median filtering methods proposed in the paper produce
2 A 2N ( P)
i i i

1
i

significantly smaller oversmoothing than the conventional

Here i and i are the angles opposite to the edge Q i P , as
Laplacian and mean curvature flows.
seen in Fig. 4.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes
two conventional methods for smoothing triangle meshes: P
the Laplacian smoothing flow [10, 5] and the mean curva-
ture flow [3, 2]. In Section 3, we introduce our mesh mean
filter. In Section 4, we present several mesh median filter-
ing schemes. L2 error metrics on mesh vertex positions and
face normals are described in Section 5. We compare the
considered smoothing methods in Section6 and conclude in Q i+1 β i
αi
Section 7. Q i-1

2 Laplacian and Mean Curvature Flows Qi

In this section, two conventional methods of polygonal

surface smoothing are considered: the Laplacian smoothing Figure 4. Angles i and i are used to estimate the
flow [10, 5] and the mean curvature flow [3, 2]. mean curvature vector at P .
Consider a discrete mesh evolution process of which up-
dates mesh vertices according to
For closed meshes, in order to eliminate mesh shrinking
Pnew Pold + D(P old ): (1) and following [3] we keep the volume of the evolving mesh

D
where (P ) is a displacement vector, and  is a step-size
constant by rescaling the mesh after each step of the mesh
evolution process.
parameter.
The Laplacian smoothing flow is obtained from (1) if the
D
displacement vector (P ) is defined by the so-called um-
3 Mean Filter for Averaging Face Normals
brella operator [5] Consider an oriented triangle mesh. Let T be a mesh
X n
triangle, (T ) be the unit normal of T , A(T ) be the area
U (P ) = n1 Q
i P; (2) of T , and C (T ) be the centroid of T . Denote by N (T )
i 2N1 ( P) the set of all mesh triangles that have a common edge or
vertex with T . One cycle of the mesh mean filtering scheme
where P is a mesh vertex, N 1 (P ) = fQ0 ; Q1 ; : : : ; Qn 1 g
consists of the following three successive steps.
is the 1-ring of mesh vertices neighboring on P , as seen in
Fig. 3. Step 1. For each mesh triangle T , compute the face normal
Q0
n
(T ) and perform an area weighted averaging:
X
Qn-1 Q1 m(T ) = P A1(U ) A(U )n(U ):
i i (4)
i
Ui 2N ( T)

See the left image of Fig. 5.

P
Q2 Step 2. For each mesh triangle T , normalize the averaged
...
normal (T ): m
m(T ) m(T )
Figure 3. Left: 1-ring of mesh vertices neighboring km(T )k :
on a vertex P . Right: updating vertex position by
Step 3. For each mesh vertex P , update its position:
umbrella operator.
X
A(T )v(T )
1
Pnew Pold + P (5)
A(T )
v(T ) = P C !
m(T ) m(T );
The mean curvature flow is given by (1) where the dis- h i
D
placement vector (P ) is equal to the mean curvature vec- with (6)

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 where the summation is taken for all triangles T adja- the centroids of the triangles T and U i respectively. In the
v
cent to P , and (T ) is the projection of the vector P C
! m
same as the angle case, a (Ui ) is selected as the new face
m
onto the the direction of (T ), as shown by the right normal of T if k i is the median curvature in the N (T ).
image of Fig. 5.
4.3 The difference between the two median filters
n(U i) m(U i) mesh The median filtering schemes enhance shape creases.
P
vertex According to our experiments, the angle median filtering
m(T)
Ui scheme has a stronger crease enhancing effect than the cur-
n(T) m(T) v(T) vature median filtering scheme, see Fig. 6.
Ui-1 T C 4.4 The principle of the weighted median filter
... e T
n gl The weighted median filtering scheme [1] described be-
a
tri low is a simple and useful modification of the basic median
h
es filter. Consider a set of samples (x 0 ; : : : ; xn 1 ) and posi-
m
tive weights (w0 ; : : : ; wn 1 ). The output of the weighted
median filter x
^ is defined by
Figure 5. Left: mesh triangles T and Ui , their nor-
n n
mals (T ) and (Ui ), and diffused normals (T ) m x^ = Median(w0  x0 ; : : : ; w n 1 x n 1); (7)
m
and (S ). Right: updating mesh vertex position. where
w i x i = x ; x {z
|
i ; : : : ; x} :
i i (8)
The area weighted averaging of face normals (Step 1) times wi

and the normalizing of the averaged normals (Step 2) define

m
It is evident that elements with large weights are more fre-
a new unit vector field f g on the mesh triangles. The quently selected by the weighted median filter.
updating of vertex positions (Step 3) attempts to find a mesh
whose normals are close to the unit vector field f g. m 4.5 An application for mesh smoothing
Let us divide the set of neighboring triangles N (T ) of a
Now a complete smoothing process is composed of the
given triangle T into two subsets: N e (T ), the set of mesh
application of Step 1 + Step 2 + Step 3 in a sufficient num-
triangles sharing an edge with T , and N v (T ), the set of
ber of times. It turns out that the mesh evolution process
(Step 1 + Step 2 + Step 3) converges quickly as n ! 1
n

mesh triangles touching T at one vertex. We assign a weight

2 to the triangles of N e (T ) and a weight 1 to the triangles
and in practice 10 30 iterations is many enough to achieve
of Nv (T ), as shown in Fig. 7.
a steady-state.
The mesh mean filter considered above is a simplified
version of a nonlinear diffusion of face normals proposed in
[8] and used for crease enhancing. A similar mesh smooth- 1
1 1
ing method was very recently proposed in [11].
2 2
1 1
4 Median Filtering Face Normals
The median filtering procedure described in this section 1
1
2
1
1
differs from the mesh mean filtering scheme of Section 3
only at the step 1.

4.1 Angle median filter Figure 7. Allocating weigh ts to triangles from N (T ).

Instead of averaging face normals, let us apply the clas-

sical median filter [4] to the angles  i = 6 m
(T ); (Ui) .
Let i is the median angle in the N (T ), then the face normal
m
of the center triangle (T ) is replaced by the (U i ). m rectional curvatures k i = i =jC (T )C (Ui )j in N (T ), and
4.2 Curvature median filter
Another median filtering procedure is obtained if we ap-
ply the classical median filter to estimated directional cur-
vatures ki = i =jC (T )C (Ui )j, where C (T ) and C (U i ) are
m Following the weight allocation, the weighted
median
filter is applied to angles,  i = 6 m
(T ); (Ui) or di- m
m
then the face normal (T ) is replaced in the new one. We
define weighted angle median filter as a weighted median
filter applied to the angles  i and also define weighted cur-
vature median filter as a weighted median filter applied to
the directional curvatures k i .

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 (a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 6. (a) Moai statue model digitized by a 3-D laser scanning system (Minolta Vivid 700). (b) Smoothed by the
mean ltering. (c) Smoothed by the angle median ltering. (d) Smoothed by the curvature median ltering. The
number of smoothing times is 50 for all cases.

5 L2 -Error Estimation where A(T 0 ) is the area of T 0 .

In order to compare the proposed mesh mean and median

filtering schemes with conventional smoothing methods, we
6 Comparison of Smoothing Methods
introduce two error metrics: a L 2 vertex-position error met- The developed mean and median filtering schemes show
ric and a L2 face-normal error metric. better performance with respect to the L 2 vertex-position
Consider an ideal mesh M and a mesh M 0 obtained from and face-normal error metrics than the Laplacian and mean
M through the addition of noise and the application of a curvature flows.
smoothing process in several times. Consider a vertex P 0 According to our experiments, the mesh mean filter
of the smoothed mesh M 0 . Let set dist(P 0 ; M ) equal to slightly outperforms mesh median filter for uniform meshes
the distance between P 0 and a triangle of the ideal mesh M without sharp features, as seen in Fig. 8. On the other hand,
closest to P 0 . Our L2 vertex-position error metric is given for uniform meshes with sharp creases, the mesh median
by filtering scheme demonstrate a better performance than the
X
A(P 0 ) dist(P 0 ; M )2
1
" mesh mean filtering scheme, as shown in Fig. 9. Further-
3A(M 0 )
v = (9)
2 more, the mesh median filter is robust even when applied to
where A(P 0 ) is the summation of areas of all triangles inci-
P0 M0
highly non-uniform meshes with sharp features as indicated
dent on P 0 and A(M 0 ) is the total area of M 0 . in Fig. 10.
Our L2 face-normal error metric is defined in the similar A comparison of the mean filter and simple / weighted
way. Consider a triangle T 0 of the mesh M 0 , and let us find and angle / curvature median filtering schemes is presented
n
a triangle T of M closest to T 0 . Let (T ) and (T 0 ) be n by Fig. 11. The tested two-holed torus model has sharp
the unit normals of T and T 0 respectively. The face-normal features, and therefore the mesh median filtering schemes
error metric is defined by are preferable. The best smoothing effect according to vi-
sual appearance and the error metrics is achieved by the
weighted median filters.
X
A(T 0 )kn(T ) n(T 0)k
1
" 2 As a consequence, the mesh mean filter is one possi-
A(M 0 ) 2
f = (10)
T0 M0
ble choice to stably smooth polygonal models with uni-

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 form meshes without sharp features when we don’t know
the proper number of smoothing times. The mesh median
filter is a effective selection to smooth polygonal models
that is constructed by uniform or non-uniform meshes with
sharp features in the same case. To expect the feature pre-
serving effect, the mesh median filter should be used.

7 Conclusion and Future Work

In this paper, we have presented new methods for denois-
ing triangle meshes: the mesh mean and median filtering
schemes. We have also compared the proposed mesh fil-
tering schemes with conventional mesh smoothing methods
such as the Laplacian smoothing flow and the mean curva-
ture flow. Experimental results demonstrated that the sup-
pression of mesh noise with the proposed methods is one
possible solution of a oversmoothing problem.
One interesting direction for future research is the de-
velopment of an error metric corresponding to our visual
perception of 3D shapes better than the proposed L 2 vertex-
0.03
position and face-normal error metrics. Median Filter
Mean Filter
Laplacian Flow
0.025
Mean Curvature Flow
References

L2 vertex-position error
0.02
[1] G. Arce and J. Paredes. Image enhancement and analysis with
weighted medians. In S. K. Mitra and G. L. Sicuranza, editors,
Nonlinear Image Processing. Academic Press, 2001. 0.015

[2] M. Desbrun, M. Meyer, P. Schröder, and A. H. Barr. Discrete

differential-geometry operators in nD. Available on WWW at
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http://www.multires.caltech.edu/pubs/pubs.htm.
[3] M. Desbrun, M. Meyer, P. Schröder, and A. H. Barr. Implicit fairing
of irregular meshes using diffusion and curvature flow. Computer 0.005

Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 99), pages 317–324, 1999.

[4] R. Klette and P. Zamperori. Handbook of Image Processing Opera- 0
tors. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1996. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

the number of smoothing times

[5] L. Kobbelt, S. Campagna, J. Vorsatz, and H.-P. Seidel. Interactive
0.7
multiresolution modeling on arbitrary meshes. In Computer Graph- Median Filter
ics (SIGGRAPH 98 Proceedings), pages 105–114, 1998. Mean Filter
Laplacian Flow
[6] N. Nikolaidis and I. Pitas. 3-D Image Processing Algorithms. John 0.6
Mean Curvature Flow
Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2001.
L2 face-normal error

[7] Y. Ohtake. Mesh Optimization and Feature Extraction. PhD thesis, 0.5

University of Aizu, Japan, March 2002.

[8] Y. Ohtake, A. G. Belyaev, and I. A. Bogaevski. Mesh regularization 0.4

and adaptive smoothing. Computer-Aided Design, 33(4):789–800,

2001. 0.3

[9] G. Sapiro. Geometric Partial Diffrential Equations and Image Anal-

ysis. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 0.2

[10] G. Taubin. A signal processing approach to fair surface design. In

Computer Graphics (Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 95), pages 351– 0.1

358, 1995.
[11] G. Taubin. Linear anisotropic mesh filtering. IBM Research Report 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
RC22213 (W0110-051), IBM, October 2001.
the number of smoothing times

Figure 8. Rocker-arm model is represented by a rela-

tively uniform mesh. Mean ltering is the best choice
for the model with noise added.

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 0.35
Median Filter
Median Filter
0.11
Mean Filter
Mean Filter
Laplacian Flow
Mean Curvature Flow 0.3 Laplacian Flow
0.1 Mean Curvature Flow
L2 vertex-position error

L2 vertex-position error
0.09 0.25

0.08
0.2

0.07

0.06 0.15

0.05
0.1

0.04

0.05
0.03

0.02
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
the number of smoothing time
the number of smoothing times
0.8
0.65
Median Filter
Median Filter
Mean Filter
0.6 Mean Filter
0.7 Laplacian Flow
Laplacian Flow
Mean Curvature Flow
Mean Curvature Flow
0.55
L2 face-normal error

0.6
L2 face-normal error

0.5

0.5 0.45

0.4
0.4

0.35

0.3
0.3

0.25
0.2

0.2

0.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0.15
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
the number of smoothing times
the number of smoothing times

Figure 9. Bloc kmodel is represented by a uniform Figure 10. Flower model is represen ted by a highly
mesh and has sharp features. non-uniform mesh and has sharp features. Angle me-
dian ltering demonstrates the best performance of
smoothing the model with noise added.

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 (a) (b) (c) (d)

(e) (f) (g) (h)

0.04 0.4
Weighted Median Filter (anlge) Weighted Median Filter (angle)
Weighted Median Filter (curvature) Weighted Median Filter (curvature)
Median Filter (angle) Median Filter (angle)
0.035 0.35
Median Filter (curvature)
Median Filter (curvature)
Mean Filter
Mean Filter
L2 vertex-position error

L2 face-normal error

0.03 0.3

0.025 0.25

0.02 0.2

0.015 0.15

0.01 0.1

0.005 0.05
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

the number of smoothing times the number of smoothing times

Figure 11. The results of smoothing a noisy tw o-holed torus, vertex-position error, and face-normal error. (a) Original
at-shaded model. (b) Original wireframe model. (c) Noise is added. (d) Smoothed by mean ltering. (e) Smoothed
by angle median ltering. (f) Smoothed by curv ature median ltering. (g) Smoothed by angle curv ature median
ltering. (h) Smoothed by weigh ted curv ature median ltering.

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