Given a two-manifold closed surface represented by a triangle mesh, Plumber automatically extracts the features that can be described as generalized cylinders or cones; we call these features, together with their concave counterparts, i.e. narrow tunnels and wells, tubular features. The Plumber approach classifies the vertices of a given triangle mesh according to their curvature and shape behavior in neighborhoods of increasing size. Main characteristics of the method and implementation are: 1. a multi-scale segmentation. Each feature is associated to a scale related to its size; 2. stability to noise; 3. abstraction of each tubular feature as a centerline skeleton with information regarding its shape (e.g., approximated volume, length of the skeletal line); 4. possibility of exporting the segmentation results and stored information as off files. Input: a closed triangle mesh. Output: a shape segmentation into connected components that are either tubular features, identified by regions which can be described as generalized cones or cylinders, and body regions identified by patches which connect tubular features.

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• Mortara M., Patané G., Spagnuolo M. From geometric to semantic human body models. In: Computers & Graphics, vol. 30 (2) pp. 185-196. Elsevier, 2006. [PDF]
• Mortara M., Patanè G., Spagnuolo M., Falcidieno B., Rossignac J. Blowing Bubbles for Multi-Scale Analysis and Decomposition of Triangle Meshes. In: Algorithmica, vol. 38 (1) pp. 227-248. Springer, 2004. [PDF]
• Mortara M., Patanè G., Spagnuolo M., Falcidieno B., Rossignac J. Plumber: a method for a multi-scale decomposition of 3D shapes into tubular primitives and bodies. In: Ninth ACM Symposium on Solid Modeling and Applications SM'04 (Genova, Italy, 9-11 June 2004). Proceedings, pp. 339-344. G. Elber, N. Patrikalakis, P. Brunet (eds.). Eurographics Association, 2004.  [PDF]
• Attene M., Katz S., Mortara M., Patané G., Spagnuolo M., Tal A. Mesh segmentation - a comparative study. In: IEEE International Conference on Shape Modeling and Applications 2006 (SMI'06) (Matsushima, Japan, 14-16 June 2006). Proceedings, pp. 14-25. IEEE Computer Society, 2006. [PDF]
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• Patanè G., Spagnuolo M., Falcidieno B. Para-Graph: Graph-Based Parameterization of Triangle Meshes with Arbitrary Genus. In: Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 23 (4) pp. 783-797. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. [PDF]
• Mortara M., Patanè G. Shape-covering for skeleton extraction. In: International Journal of Shape Modeling, vol. 8 (2) pp. 139-158. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2002. [PDF]