Abstract: A progressive mesh algorithm is proposed to accelerate the transmission and display of 3D
graphics based on inverse 3 subdivision. Main steps of the algorithm are as follows. Firstly, the
original mesh is simplified by edge contraction. Secondly, vertexes of control mesh are modified for
the purposes of their subdivision limit points which are approximate to the original mesh. Thirdly, the
high-density mesh is obtained by 3 subdivision. Finally, inverse 3 subdivision is implemented. In
detail, some vertexes are removed from mesh after each time of inverse 3 subdivision. The base
mesh and a set of displacement values are kept for reconstructing a series of progressive meshes. For
3 subdivision, the growth rate of number of triangles is lower than some other subdivision scheme.
As a result, more levels of meshes can be obtained by inverse 3 subdivision. Experiment results
show that progressive meshes generated by 3 subdivision can meet the need of fast and
multi-resolution display.

Key words: mesh compression, progressive mesh, inverse subdivision, 3 subdivision