PWN2PLY is a GUI application dedicated to the conversion of PWN files to PLY format. The application applies an algorithm to build a mesh, recordable in PLY format (polygons, more precisely triangles), from the set of normals and points of application of a PWN file (Points With Normals). The algorithm in question extracts an isosurface from an indicator function defining the belonging to the volume to mesh. The method main idea is to calculate the indicator function from the normals in spatial frequencies domain through tridimensional FFT algorithm on the basis of the equation defining the normals field as the indicator function gradient (tridimensional vector field, gradient of a scalar field, sign depending on normals direction). Thus, the spatial indicator function calculated from the integration of the normals tridimensional Fourier transforms is injected in an isosurface extraction method to define the surface of the object. Then the corresponding MATLAB patch can be saved in PLY ASCII format.
