/** \page mesh_navigation How to navigate on a mesh \section nav_overview Overview \li \ref nav_intro \li \ref nav_he \li \ref nav_bound \li \ref nav_io \li \ref nav_opposite \li \ref nav_to_from \section nav_intro Introduction In this tutorial you will learn how to navigate on a mesh using the %OpenMesh library. In the previous chapter (see \ref mesh_iterators) you have learned how to iterate over vertices, edges, halfedges and faces as well as circulate over certain structures such as 1-rings and many more. So in this tutorial we will focus on efficiently using the halfedge data structure and some very useful attributes such as the boundary flag. We assume that you already made yourself familiar with the halfedge structure which is used in %OpenMesh. Further information on this topic can be found in \ref mesh_hds. \section nav_he Navigating over halfedges So let's start with navigating over halfedges of a mesh. Assume we have the following mesh topology: \image html mesh.normal.png We can now select an arbitrary halfedge of this mesh which then offers either one of two possible navigations: \li If the chosen halfedge lies at a boundary or in other words is not adjacent to a face, we can now navigate along the boundary (or hole) of our mesh by using \c next_halfedge_handle() or \c prev_halfedge_handle(): \image html mesh.outer.png \li If the chosen halfedge is adjacent to a face, we can then navigate along all halfedges that are adjacent to this face. In other words we circulate around the inner halfedges of one face: \image html mesh.inner.png In both cases the code would look something like the following example. Depending on whether the initial halfedge is adjacent to a face or not, we will either navigate on the boundary halfedges of our mesh or along the inner halfedges of a face: \include nav_code1.cc References:
OpenMesh::Concepts::KernelT< FinalMeshItems >::next_halfedge_handle()
OpenMesh::Concepts::KernelT< FinalMeshItems >::prev_halfedge_handle() \section nav_bound Mesh boundaries As you have seen in the previous section, navigating along boundaries is very simple. In general %OpenMesh also offers a boundary attribute for edges, vertices and faces. So testing i.e. whether a face is a boundary face is quite simple using OpenMesh::PolyConnectivity::is_boundary().
So for each type we can make use of one of the following functions: \include nav_code2.cc \section nav_io Using incoming and outgoing halfedges %OpenMesh offers quite a lot of iterators and circulators to easily iterate over the structures of a mesh. A very helpful iterator is the OpenMesh::PolyConnectivity::VertexIHalfedgeIter or the OpenMesh::PolyConnectivity::VertexOHalfedgeIter which are used to iterate over all incoming/outgoing halfedges of a vertex. So, sticking to the illustration below, a OpenMesh::PolyConnectivity:V:ertexIHalfedgeIter for the lower most vertex would iterate over all incoming halfedges (blue), whereas the OpenMesh::PolyConnectivity::OpenMesh::PolyConnectivity::VertexOHalfedgeIter would iterate over all outgoing halfedges (red): \image html mesh.inout.png A schematic code example of how to use the halfedge iterators as described above: \include nav_code3.cc \section nav_opposite Using opposite halfedges The halfedge structure splits every edge into two directional parts by creating two directed edges out of one undirected edge. So for every halfedge there exists its counterpart pointing in the opposite direction. %OpenMesh allows to easily navigate through opposing halfedges via the function OpenMesh::Concepts::KernelT< FinalMeshItems >::opposite_halfedge_handle(). So in the illustration below \c opposite_halfedge_handle() for the blue halfedge would return the red halfedge: \image html mesh.opp.png Use this function as described in the example below: \include nav_code4a.cc There are also a few more functions that offer easy access to opposing structures: \include nav_code4.cc \section nav_to_from Getting the to and from vertices \image html mesh.to.from.png If you have an halfedge, you can get the to and the from handles of the adjacent vertices. \note The halfedges have a direction. Therefore the to vertex is the from vertex of the opposite halfedge and vice versa. \include nav_code_to_from.cc */