Triangulated Irregular Network

Triangulated irregular network (TIN) is a digital data structure used in a geographic

information system (GIS) for the representation of a surface. A TIN is a vector based
representation of the physical land surface or sea bottom, made up of irregularly
distributed nodes and lines ith three dimensional coordinates (!, y, and ") that are
arranged in a netor# of non$overlapping triangles. TINs are often derived from the
elevation data of a rasteri"ed digital elevation model (%&').
Comparison of TIN with DEM.
(. )oints of a TIN are distributed variably based on an algorithm that determines
hich points are most necessary to an accurate representation of the terrain.
*. %ata input is therefore fle!ible and feer points need to be stored than in a %&'
ith regularly distributed points.
+. TIN may be less suited than a %&' raster for certain #inds of GIS applications,
such as analysis of a surface,s slope and aspect.
-. TIN enables the portraying of terrain in three dimensions.
A TIN comprises a triangular netor# of vertices, #non as mass points, ith associated
coordinates in three dimensions connected by edges to form a triangular tessellation.
Tessellation or tiling of the plane is a collection of plane figures that fills the plane ith
no overlaps and no gaps. .ne may also spea# of tessellations of the parts of the plane or
of other surfaces. Generali"ations to higher dimensions are also possible. Three$
dimensional visuali"ations are readily created by rendering of the triangular facets. In
regions here there is little variation in surface height, the points may be idely spaced
hereas in areas of more intense variation in height the point density is increased.
(
A tessellation of a dis# used to solve a finite element problem. Solving the to$
dimensional problem uxx / uyy 0 1 - in the dis# centered at the origin and radius (, ith
"ero boundary conditions.
Although usually associated ith +$dimensional data (!, y, and ") and topography, TINs
are also useful for the description and analysis of hori"ontal (! and y) distributions and
relationships
A TIN is typically based on a %elaunay triangulation but its utility ill be limited by the
selection of input data points2 ell$chosen points ill be located so as to capture
significant changes in surface form, such as topographical summits, brea#s of slope,
ridges, valley floors, pits and cols (depression in mountain chain).
*
Delaunay Triangulation
In mathematics, and computational geometry, a Delaunay triangulation for a set P of
points in the plane is a triangulation %T( P ) such that no point in P is inside the
circumcircle of any triangle in %T( P ). %elaunay triangulations ma!imi"e the minimum
angle of all the angles of the triangles in the triangulation3 they tend to avoid s#inny
triangles. The triangulation as invented by 4oris %elaunay in (5+-.
4ased on %elaunay,s definition, the circumcircle of a triangle formed by three points
from the original point set is empty if it does not contain vertices other than the three that
define it (other points are permitted only on the very perimeter, not inside).
A triangle net is a Delaunay triangulation if all the circumcircles of all the triangles in the
net are empty. This is the original definition for bidimensional spaces. It is possible to use
it in tridimensional spaces by using a circumscribed sphere in place of the circumcircle.
6or a set of points on the same line there is no %elaunay triangulation (in fact, the notion
of triangulation is undefined for this case).
6or - points on the same circle (e.g., the vertices of a rectangle) the %elaunay
triangulation is not uni7ue2 clearly, the to possible triangulations that split the
7uadrangle into to triangles satisfy the %elaunay condition.

A %elaunay triangulation in the plane ith circumcircles shon
Example: 8oo#ing at to triangles A4% and 49% ith the common edge 4% (see
figures), if the sum of the angles : and ; is less than or e7ual to (<=>, the triangles meet
the %elaunay condition.
+
This is an important property because it allos the use of a flipping techni7ue. If to
triangles do not meet the %elaunay condition, sitching the common edge 4% for the
common edge A9 produces to triangles that do meet the %elaunay condition 2
This triangulation does not meet the %elaunay condition (the sum of : and ; is bigger
than (<=>).
This triangulation does not meet the %elaunay condition (the circumferences contain
more than + points, -
th
falling ithin the circle hich is not alloed)
Flipping the common edge produces a %elaunay triangulation for the four points.
-
lgorithms for Testing Delaunay Conditions
All algorithms for computing %elaunay triangulations rely on fast operations for
detecting hen a point is ithin a triangle,s circumcircle and an efficient data structure
for storing triangles and edges. In to dimensions, one ay to detect if point D lies in the
circumcircle of A, B, C is to evaluate the determinant2
Assuming A, B and C to lie counter$cloc#ise, this is positive if and only if D lies in the
circumcircle.
Assume the folloing values for the corners in the above triangles. A2(?,?), 42 ((=,*), 92
((?,?), %2 ((=,*=). Substituting these values in the above determinant e have
( * +
( * +
2 **?== 2 *-+== 2 =
? ? ?= (
? (? *?= ? (? *?= ? (?
(= * (=- (
= (< +*- = (< +*- = (<
(? ? *?= (
? (? *?= ? (? *?= ? (?
(= *= ?== (
2 **?== 2 *-+== 2 =
S S S
P P P

= =

Then determinant
( * + ( * +
( ) **?== *-+== ( **?== *-+== =) +@== = P P P S S S = + + + + = + + = <
Then the point % does not lie in the circumcircle.
If the y coordinate of the point % is changed to (= and the determinant recomputed e
obtain +<== = = > . Then the point % lies in the circumcircle
The TIN model represents a surface as a set of contiguous, non-overlapping triangles. Within
each triangle the surface is represented by a plane. The triangles are made from a set of points
called mass points.
Mass points can occur at any location, the more carefully selected, the more accurate the model
of the surface. Well-placed mass points occur where there is a major change in the shape of the
surface, for eample, at the pea! of a mountain, the floor of a valley, or at the edge "top and
bottom# of cliffs.
?
The TIN model is attractive because of its simplicity and economy and is a significant alternative
to the regular raster of the $%I& model.
'uic! comparison(
TIN $%I&
)dvantages
ability to describe the
surface at different
level of resolution
efficiency in storing
data
easy to store and
manipulate
easy integration with
raster databases
smoother, more
natural appearance of
derived terrain
features
&isadvantages
in many cases re*uire
visual inspection and
manual control of the
networ!
inability to use various
grid si+es to reflect
areas of different
compleity of relief.
The Delaunay Triangulation
&elaunay triangulation is a proimal method that satisfies the re*uirement that a circle drawn
through the three nodes of a triangle will contain no other node

&elaunay triangulation has several advantages over other triangulation methods(
The triangles are as e*ui-angular as possible, thus reducing potential numerical precision
problems created by long s!inny triangles
,nsures that any point on the surface is as close as possible to a node
The triangulation is independent of the order the points are processed
@
TIN from contours
-ontours are a common source of digital elevation data. In general all the vertices of the contour
lines are used as mass points for triangulation. In many cases this will cause the presence of flat
triangles in the surface.
.lat triangles are created whenever a triangle is formed from three nodes with the same elevation
value
.lat triangles are fre*uently generated along contours when the sample points occur along the
contour at a distance that is less than the distance between contours. When these /ecess/
vertices are not removed , the &elaunay triangulation discovers that the closest sample points are
those along the same contour, causing the generation of flat triangles.
The flat triangles have a slope of 0 and do not have defined aspect. They might cause problems
when the surface is used for modeling.
,ample
The contours The triangulation - We can see several flat
triangles here
A
The elevation The slope- The green areas indicate
1lope 2 0 "flat triangles#
3ow can we avoid the flat triangles 4
5y adding more mass points
$enerali+ing the contours
5y adding brea! lines
Break lines
6inear features which define and control surface behavior in terms of smoothness and continuity
are called brea! lines.
Types of brea! lines(
1oft brea! lines are used to ensure that linear features and polygon edges are
maintained in the TIN surface model by enforcing the brea! line as TIN edges. 3owever,
they do not define interruptions in surface smoothness 7 brea! lines with no 8 value
3ard brea! lines define interruptions in surface smoothness 7 brea! lines with 8 value
,ample(
No brea! lines 1oft brea! lines 3ard brea! lines
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Storing TINs
There are basically two ways of storing triangulated networ!s(
Triangle by triangle
;oints and their neighbors
The first method is better for storing attributes "slope, aspect ..# for each triangle, but uses more
storage space. The second one is better for generating contours and uses less storage space,
but slope, aspect , etc must be calculated and stored separately.
TIN and )rc:iew
The 9& )nalyst etension has a very good algorithm for building TINs. It has plenty of functions
to analy+e and visuali+e a TIN surface. It stores the TIN structure using the second method
above. That<s why the slope, aspect and hillshade analysis functions create grids to represent the
results. The build TIN and create contours procedures are fast and efficient.
5
,ditTools 9.= etension creates TIN structures and stores the data as a 9& triangles ";olygon8
shape file#. )fter analysis the slope, aspect and hillshade values are stored as attributes for each
triangle. This allows fast visuali+ation of the different surface derivatives. The TIN interpolation
procedure and the deriving of contours from the surface are slower, but the results are pretty
much the same as these obtained from 9& )nalyst.
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