Construction and transformation method of 3D models based on the chain-type modular structure

This study proposes a method of constructing and transforming three-dimensional (3D) models that can convert a 3D model into a chain-type modular configuration and realize the mutual transformation between different configurations with a straight chain as the intermediate state through standard folding steps. A method for detailed representation of voxels is proposed. Based on detailed voxels, an accelerated generation algorithm for the connection forest, which can describe the possible chain configurations, is developed. The foldability verification of the configurations and the generation of the folding operations are realized according to the folding rules. A collision detection algorithm based on encoding and projection is also introduced to detect collisions in the process of folding sequence generation. In this work, an interactive platform is established for users to calculate the input model transformation through simple operations and obtain a simulation animation of the folding operations. The experimental cases prove the effectiveness of the method in constructing and transforming the chain-type modular configurations of the input 3D models.