A triangle-mesh-surface-simplification algorithm based on a
constrained energy function is proposed. In the algorithm,
vertices are deleted iteratively according to the
dimension-less energy function, which represents the cost of
surface modification by vertex deletion and subsequent hole
re-triangulation. The energy function is used both for
selecting a vertex with the minimum energy for deletion and
for constraining the target curvature of the surface to be
simplified. During simplification, the target curvature of
the surface to be simplified is modified gradually by
increasing upper limit constraints. The experimental results
show that the proposed algorithm has the advantage that a
set of parameters can be applied to various-scale data
composed of a variety of sizes and shapes with boundary edges.