A mapping-independent primitive for the triangulation of parametric surfaces

This paper describes a new technique for the triangulation of parametric surfaces. Most earlier methods sample the parameter domain, and the wrong choice of parameterization can spoil the triangulation or even cause the algorithm to fail. Conversely, we use a local tessellation primitive to sample and triangulate the surface. The sampling is almost uniform and the parameterization becomes irrelevant. If sampling density or triangle shape has to be adaptive, the resulting uniform mesh can be used either as an initial coarse mesh for a refinement process, or as a fine mesh to be reduced.