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 with three dimensional coordinates (x, y, and z) that are
arranged in a network of non-overlapping triangles. TINs are often derived from the
elevation data of a rasterized digital elevation model (DEM).

Comparison of TIN with DEM.

1. Points of a TIN are distributed variably based on an algorithm that determines

which points are most necessary to an accurate representation of the terrain.
2. Data input is therefore flexible and fewer points need to be stored than in a DEM
with regularly distributed points.

3. TIN may be less suited than a DEM raster for certain kinds of GIS applications,
such as analysis of a surface's slope and aspect.

4. TIN enables the portraying of terrain in three dimensions.

A TIN comprises a triangular network of vertices, known as mass points, with 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 with
no overlaps and no gaps. One may also speak of tessellations of the parts of the plane or
of other surfaces. Generalizations to higher dimensions are also possible. Three-
dimensional visualizations are readily created by rendering of the triangular facets. In
regions where there is little variation in surface height, the points may be widely spaced
whereas in areas of more intense variation in height the point density is increased.

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 A tessellation of a disk used to solve a finite element problem. Solving the two-
dimensional problem uxx + uyy = − 4 in the disk centered at the origin and radius 1, with
zero boundary conditions.

Although usually associated with 3-dimensional data (x, y, and z) and topography, TINs
are also useful for the description and analysis of horizontal (x and y) distributions and
relationships

A TIN is typically based on a Delaunay triangulation but its utility will be limited by the
selection of input data points: well-chosen points will be located so as to capture
significant changes in surface form, such as topographical summits, breaks 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 DT(P) such that no point in P is inside the
circumcircle of any triangle in DT(P). Delaunay triangulations maximize the minimum
angle of all the angles of the triangles in the triangulation; they tend to avoid skinny
triangles. The triangulation was invented by Boris Delaunay in 1934.

Based on Delaunay'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.

For a set of points on the same line there is no Delaunay triangulation (in fact, the notion
of triangulation is undefined for this case).

For 4 points on the same circle (e.g., the vertices of a rectangle) the Delaunay
triangulation is not unique: clearly, the two possible triangulations that split the
quadrangle into two triangles satisfy the Delaunay condition.

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A Delaunay triangulation in the plane with circumcircles shown

Example: Looking at two triangles ABD and BCD with the common edge BD (see
figures), if the sum of the angles α and γ is less than or equal to 180°, the triangles meet
the Delaunay condition.

This is an important property because it allows the use of a flipping technique. If two
triangles do not meet the Delaunay condition, switching the common edge BD for the
common edge AC produces two triangles that do meet the Delaunay condition :

This triangulation does not meet the Delaunay condition (the sum of α and γ is bigger
than 180°).

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This triangulation does not meet the Delaunay condition (the circumferences contain
more than 3 points, 4th falling within the circle which is not allowed)

Flipping the common edge produces a Delaunay triangulation for the four points.

Algorithms for Testing Delaunay Conditions

All algorithms for computing Delaunay triangulations rely on fast operations for
detecting when a point is within a triangle's circumcircle and an efficient data structure
for storing triangles and edges. In two dimensions, one way to detect if point D lies in the
circumcircle of A, B, C is to evaluate the determinant:

Assuming A, B and C to lie counter-clockwise, this is positive if and only if D lies in the
circumcircle.

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Assume the following values for the corners in the above triangles. A:(5,5), B: (10,2), C:
(15,5), D: (10,20). Substituting these values in the above determinant we have

S1 : -22500 S2 : 24300 S3 : 0
5 5 50 1
-5 -15 250 -5 -15 250 -5 -15
10 2 104 1
= 0 -18 324 = 0 -18 324 0 -18
15 5 250 1
5 -15 250 5 -15 250 5 -15
10 20 500 1
P1 : 22500 P2 : -24300 P3 : 0

Then determinant
D = P1 + P2 + P3 - ( S1 + S2 + S3 ) = 22500 - 24300 - (-22500 + 24300 + 0) = -3600 < 0

Then the point D does not lie in the circumcircle.

If the y coordinate of the point D is changed to 10 and the determinant recomputed we

obtain D = 3800 > 0 . Then the point D 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 example, at the peak 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 GRID model.

Quick comparison:
TIN
 ability to describe the
surface at different
level of resolution
Advantages  efficiency in storing
data
 in many cases require
visual inspection and
Disadvantages
manual control of the
network
GRID
 easy to store and
manipulate
 easy integration with
raster databases
 smoother, more
natural appearance of
derived terrain
features
 inability to use various
grid sizes to reflect
areas of different
complexity of relief.

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The Delaunay Triangulation

Delaunay triangulation is a proximal method that satisfies the requirement that a circle drawn
through the three nodes of a triangle will contain no other node

Delaunay triangulation has several advantages over other triangulation methods:

 The triangles are as equi-angular as possible, thus reducing potential numerical precision
problems created by long skinny triangles
 Ensures 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

Contours 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.

Flat triangles are created whenever a triangle is formed from three nodes with the same elevation
value

Flat triangles are frequently generated along contours when the sample points occur along the
contour at a distance that is less than the distance between contours. When these "excess"
vertices are not removed , the Delaunay 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.

Example

The contours The triangulation - We can see several flat

triangles here

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The elevation The slope- The green areas indicate
Slope = 0 (flat triangles)

How can we avoid the flat triangles ?

 By adding more mass points
 Generalizing the contours
 By adding break lines

Break lines

Linear features which define and control surface behavior in terms of smoothness and continuity
are called break lines.

Types of break lines:

 Soft break lines are used to ensure that linear features and polygon edges are
maintained in the TIN surface model by enforcing the break line as TIN edges. However,
they do not define interruptions in surface smoothness – break lines with no Z value
 Hard break lines define interruptions in surface smoothness – break lines with Z value

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Example:
No break lines Soft break lines Hard break lines
The Data
ionTriangulatThe
SurfaceThe
3D View

Storing TINs

There are basically two ways of storing triangulated networks:

 Triangle by triangle
 Points and their neighbors

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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 ArcView

The 3D Analyst extension has a very good algorithm for building TINs. It has plenty of functions
to analyze and visualize 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.

EditTools 3.1 extension creates TIN structures and stores the data as a 3D triangles (PolygonZ
shape file). After analysis the slope, aspect and hillshade values are stored as attributes for each
triangle. This allows fast visualization 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 3D Analyst.