English

Polycubes via Dual Loops

Computational Geometry 2025-06-11 v4 Graphics

Abstract

In this paper we study polycubes: orthogonal polyhedra with axis-aligned quadrilateral faces. We present a complete characterization of polycubes of any genus based on their dual structure: a collection of oriented loops which run in each of the axis directions and capture polycubes via their intersection patterns. A polycube loop structure uniquely corresponds to a polycube. We also describe all combinatorially different ways to add a loop to a loop structure while maintaining its validity. Similarly, we show how to identify loops that can be removed from a polycube loop structure without invalidating it. Our characterization gives rise to an iterative algorithm to construct provably valid polycube maps for a given input surface.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2410.16865,
  title  = {Polycubes via Dual Loops},
  author = {Maxim Snoep and Bettina Speckmann and Kevin Verbeek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.16865},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:31:13.263Z