Half-Edge Data Structure for 2-Manifold Boundary Representations

VERTEX Datastructure:

Coordinates
First vertex EDGE_USE

EDGE_USE Datastructure:

Root VERTEX
Sibling EDGE_USE (in opposite direction)
Next EDGE_USE (to form the loop around the face)
FACE (that the loop circumnavigates
Next Vertex EDGE_USE (needed for non-2-manifolds, where topology around vertex may not be a disk)

FACE Datastructure:

any EDGE_USE (in its contour loop)

In addition, for effective traversals of the whole data structure we need linked lists of same-kind elements:

VERTEX List

EDGE List (points to just one of the associated EDGE_USE elements).

FACE List

For more details and extensions of this to non-manifold structures, see:
McMains et al: "Out-of-Core Build of a Topological Data Structure from Polygon Soup"

Page Editor: Carlo H. Séquin