Distance between meshes

[oscalbert]

The distance between two meshes, is it exactly the smallest distance between the two nearest triangles of the two meshes ?

[Fedr]

MeshLib has several functions for distance computation.

If we are talking about findSignedDistance:

/**
 * \brief computes minimal distance between two meshes
 * \param rigidB2A rigid transformation from B-mesh space to A mesh space, nullptr considered as identity transformation
 * \param upDistLimitSq upper limit on the positive distance in question, if the real distance is larger than the function exists returning upDistLimitSq and no valid points
 */
MRMESH_API MeshSignedDistanceResult findSignedDistance( const MeshPart & a, const MeshPart & b,
    const AffineXf3f* rigidB2A = nullptr, float upDistLimitSq = FLT_MAX );

then yes, if two bodies do not intersect, it will return the smallest distance among all pairs of triangles from the two meshes.

This function is also exposed in Python, and is available in MeshInspector UI, see video.