Tutorial and tests of TriangleRayIntersection function

By Jarek Tuszynski (jaroslaw.w.tuszynski@saic.com)

Ray/triangle intersection using the algorithm proposed by Möller and Trumbore (1997), implemented as highly vectorized MATLAB code.

Note : The algorithm is able to solve several types of problems:

In order to allow that to happen all input arrays are expected in Nx3 format, where N is number of vertices or rays. In most cases number of vertices is different than number of rays, so one of the inputs will have to be cloned to have the right size. Use "repmat(A,size(B,1),1)" function.

Input (all arrays in in Nx3 format, where N is number of vertices or rays):

  1. orig : ray's origin
  2. dir : ray's direction
  3. vert0, vert1, vert2: vertices of the triangle mesh
  4. options: aditional customization options

Output:

Contents

Algorithm

Function solves:

$$\left[\begin{array}{ccc} -d_{x} & v1_{x}-v0_{x} & v2_{x}-v0_{x} \\ -d_{y} & v1_{y}-v0_{y} & v2_{y}-v0_{y} \\ -d_{z} & v1_{z}-v0_{z} & v2_{z}-v0_{z} \end{array}\right]\*\left[\begin{array}{c} t \\ u \\ v \end{array} \right]=\left[\begin{array}{c} o_{x}-v0_{x} \\ o_{y}-v0_{y} \\ o_{z}-v0_{z} \end{array}\right]$$

for $\left[\begin{array}{c} t \\ u \\ v \end{array} \right]$.

Variables u , v are barycentric coordinates and t/|d| is the distance from the intersection point to the ray origin. Ray and triangle intersect if u>=0, v>=0 and u+v<=1 .

References

Based on

Licence

The function is distributed under BSD License

format compact; % viewing preference
clear variables; close all;
type('license.txt')

Copyright (c) 2011, Jaroslaw Tuszynski
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are 
met:

    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in 
      the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution
      
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" 
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE 
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR 
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF 
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS 
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN 
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) 
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE 
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Create small surface and perform intersection with a ray (many faces / single ray type problem)

n=20;
[x,y] = meshgrid(1:n,1:n);    % create 2D mesh of points
faces = delaunay(x,y);        % triangulate it using Delaunay algorithm
z     = peaks(n);             % sample function defined on a grid of the same dimenision
vertices = [x(:) y(:) z(:)];  % vertices stored as Nx3 matrix
orig  = [n/2+5 n 2];          % ray's origin
dest  = [n/2-5 0 2];          % ray's destination
vert1 = vertices(faces(:,1),:);
vert2 = vertices(faces(:,2),:);
vert3 = vertices(faces(:,3),:);
Orig  = repmat(orig,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
Dest  = repmat(dest,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
tic;
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3);
fprintf('Number of: faces=%i, points=%i, intresections=%i; time=%f sec\n', ...
  size(faces,1), size(vertices,1), sum(intersect), toc);

Number of: faces=722, points=400, intresections=4; time=0.000901 sec

Display the results: Surface in blue, line in light read and intersected triangles in dark red

figure(1); clf;
trisurf(faces,x,y,z, intersect*1.0,'FaceAlpha', 0.9)
hold on;
line('XData',[orig(1) dest(1)],'YData',[orig(2) dest(2)],'ZData',...
  [orig(3) dest(3)],'Color','r','LineWidth',3)

Create the same surface witch much more elements and perform intersection with a ray

number of intersections should remain the same

n=500;
[x,y] = meshgrid(1:n,1:n);    % create 2D mesh of points
faces   = delaunay(x,y);        % triangulate it using Delaunay algorithm
z     = peaks(n);             % sample function dafined on a grid of the same dimenision
vertices = [x(:) y(:) z(:)];  % vertices stored as Nx3 matrix
orig  = [n/2+5 n 2];          % ray's origin
dest  = [n/2-5 0 2];          % ray's destination
vert1 = vertices(faces(:,1),:);
vert2 = vertices(faces(:,2),:);
vert3 = vertices(faces(:,3),:);
Orig  = repmat(orig,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
Dest  = repmat(dest,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
tic;
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3);
fprintf('Number of: faces=%i, points=%i, intresections=%i; time=%f sec\n', ...
  size(faces,1), size(vertices,1), sum(intersect), toc);

Number of: faces=498002, points=250000, intresections=4; time=0.091225 sec

Triangulate a sphere and display it

n=50;
[x,y,z] = sphere(n);
DT = DelaunayTri([x(:) y(:) z(:)]);
[faces, vertices] = freeBoundary(DT);
figure(1); clf;
trisurf(faces, vertices(:,1),vertices(:,2),vertices(:,3),'FaceAlpha', 0.9)
axis equal

Warning: Duplicate data points have been detected and removed.
 The Triangulation indices are defined with respect to
 the unique set of points in DelaunayTri property X.

Intersect sphete with a a line segment

orig  = [ 0  0  0];          % ray's origin
dest  = [-1 -1 -1];          % ray's destination
vert1 = vertices(faces(:,1),:);
vert2 = vertices(faces(:,2),:);
vert3 = vertices(faces(:,3),:);
Orig  = repmat(orig,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
Dest  = repmat(dest,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
option=[]; option.ray = 'segment';
tic;
[intersect, t] = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of: faces=%i, points=%i, intresections=%i; time=%f sec\n', ...
  size(faces,1), size(vertices,1), sum(intersect), toc);
fprintf('Intersection points are:       %3.1f from origin\n', ...
  t(intersect)*norm(dest-orig,2));
fprintf('Intersection points should be: 1.0 from origin\n');

Number of: faces=4900, points=2452, intresections=1; time=0.001532 sec
Intersection points are:       1.0 from origin
Intersection points should be: 1.0 from origin

Display results: Surface in blue, line in light read and intersected triangles in dark red

figure(1); clf;
trisurf(faces, vertices(:,1),vertices(:,2),vertices(:,3), intersect*1.0,'FaceAlpha', 0.9)
axis equal
hold on;
line('XData',[orig(1) dest(1)],'YData',[orig(2) dest(2)],'ZData',...
  [orig(3) dest(3)],'Color','r','LineWidth',3)

Using option.ray

If option.ray = 'segment' then function performs line-segment / triangle intersection. In the code below we expect one intersection when one point of the line-segment is on one the inside the sphere and the other one on the outside.

option=[]; option.ray = 'segment';
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intresections=%i\n',sum(intersect));

Number of intresections=1

When both points are inside then no intersections are expected

Dest2 = Dest/2;
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest2-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intresections=%i\n',sum(intersect));

Number of intresections=0

If option.ray = 'ray' than function performs infinite-ray / triangle intersection. In the code below we expect two intersections independent of the length of the vector

option=[]; option.ray = 'ray';
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intresections=%i\n',sum(intersect));
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest2-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intresections=%i\n',sum(intersect));

Number of intresections=2
Number of intresections=2

Using option.triangle

Each triangle has 2 sides. Sides can be distingish from each other by calculating surface normal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_normal) in case of our sphere all surface normals are pointing outwards

clf;
faceCenter = (vert1+vert2+vert3)/3;
faceNormal = cross(vert2-vert1, vert3-vert1,2);
trisurf(faces, vertices(:,1),vertices(:,2),vertices(:,3),'FaceAlpha', 0.9);
hold on;
quiver3(faceCenter(:,1),faceCenter(:,2),faceCenter(:,3),...
        faceNormal(:,1),faceNormal(:,2),faceNormal(:,3),3);

if option.triangle = 'one sided' than all intersections along face normal are ignored

option=[];
option.triangle = 'one sided';
option.ray      = 'segment';
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intresections going out  =%i\n',sum(intersect));
intersect = TriangleRayIntersection(Dest, Orig-Dest, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intresections comming in =%i\n',sum(intersect));

Number of intresections going out  =0
Number of intresections comming in =1

Example with many rays and many triangles (many faces / many rays type problem)

So far all examples were of a single ray (cloned to the same size as number of vertices) and many triangles. However one can as well have one triangle and many rays, or many rays and many triangles. Example below calculates intersections between faces and rays goint through the center of each face. Since each intersection is in the same relative point t, u and v returned are very similar

faceCenter = (vert1+vert2+vert3)/3;
[intersect, t, u, v] = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, 2*(faceCenter-Orig), vert1, vert2, vert3);
fprintf('Number of: faces=%i, intresections=%i\n', size(faces,1), sum(intersect));
fprintf('mean t=%f+-%f\n', mean(t), std(t));
fprintf('mean u=%f+-%f\n', mean(u), std(u));
fprintf('mean v=%f+-%f\n', mean(v), std(v));

Number of: faces=4900, intresections=4900
mean t=0.500000+-0.000000
mean u=0.333333+-0.000000
mean v=0.333333+-0.000000

Using option.border to customize border handling

Create simple tetrahedral and add a ray passing through one of the vertices

[x,y] = pol2cart((0:2)'*2*pi/3,1);
vertices = [0 0 1; x y [0; 0; 0]];
faces    = [1 2 3; 1 3 4; 1 4 2; 2 3 4];
figure(1); clf;
trisurf(faces, vertices(:,1),vertices(:,2),vertices(:,3),'FaceAlpha', 0.5);
view([3 1 1])
axis equal
vert1 = vertices(faces(:,1),:);
vert2 = vertices(faces(:,2),:);
vert3 = vertices(faces(:,3),:);
orig  = [0 0 0.5];                    % ray's origin
dest  = [0 0 2];                      % ray's destination
Orig  = repmat(orig,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
Dest  = repmat(dest,size(vert1,1),1); % Clone it until the same size as vert1
hold on;
line('XData',[orig(1) dest(1)],'YData',[orig(2) dest(2)],'ZData',...
  [orig(3) dest(3)],'Color','r','LineWidth',3)

option.border controls border handling:

option=[]; option.ray='segment'; option.border = 'normal';
intersect1 = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
option.border = 'inclusive';
intersect2 = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
option.border = 'exclusive';
intersect3 = TriangleRayIntersection(Orig, Dest-Orig, vert1, vert2, vert3, option);
fprintf('Number of intersections with border: normal=%i, inclusive=%i, exclusive=%i\n',...
  sum(intersect1), sum(intersect2), sum(intersect3));

Number of intersections with border: normal=3, inclusive=3, exclusive=0


Published with MATLAB® R2012b