A Physics-Based Estimation of Mean Curvature Normal Vector for Triangulated Surfaces
For researchers in geometry processing and computer graphics, this provides a physics-based derivation that validates existing methods and suggests extensions to other mesh types.
The authors derive an approximation for the mean curvature normal vector on triangulated meshes from physics principles, showing it is equivalent to the discrete Laplace-Beltrami operator. The work offers an alternative expression and potential extension to non-triangular meshes.
In this note, we derive an approximation for the mean curvature normal vector on vertices of triangulated surface meshes from the Young-Laplace equation and the force balance principle. We then demonstrate that the approximation expression from our physics-based derivation is equivalent to the discrete Laplace-Beltrami operator approach in the literature. This work, in addition to providing an alternative expression to calculate the mean curvature normal vector, can be further extended to other mesh structures, including non-triangular and heterogeneous meshes.