Triangle mesh

A triangle mesh is a construct used in computer graphics. It comprises a set of triangles (typically in three dimensions) that are connected by their common edges.

Many graphics software packages and hardware devices can operate more efficiently on triangles that are grouped into meshes than on a similar number of triangles that are presented individually. This is typically because computer graphics do operations on the vertices at the corners of triangles. With individual triangles, the system has to operate on three vertices for every triangle. In a large mesh, there could be eight or more triangles meeting at a single vertex - by processing those vertices just once, it is possible to do a fraction of the work and achieve an identical effect.

With OpenGL or DirectX graphics systems, arbitary triangle meshes are not supported. However strips of triangles - (where each triangle shares one edge with one neighbour and another with the next) and triangle 'fans' are dealt with efficiently resulting in the need to process N+2 vertices in order to draw N triangles.