3D Lingo
A point cloud is a set of data points in a coordinate system. In
a three-dimensional coordinate system, these points
represent the external surface of an object and are usually
defined by X, Y, and Z coordinates.
There are five essential terms that are used to describe
elements of a given point cloud: vertices, edges, faces,
polygons and surfaces.
A vertex is a position. It
includes additional
information such as color,
normal vector, and
texture coordinates.
A connection (i.e. a line)
between two vertices is
an edge.
A face is a closed set of
edges. It can be
categorized as a triangle
face (three edges) or a
quad face (four edges).
If a collection of faces all
exist on a single
geometric plane, this one
collection of faces is
labeled as a polygon.
Note: Polygons and faces are
equivalent in soware
platforms that support
multi-sided faces. However,
most rendering systems
support only 3- or 4-sided
faces. So polygons are
represented as multiple faces.
Surfaces connect
neighbouring polygons
together. Also called
smoothing groups.
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