  We introduce an algorithm to remesh triangle meshes representing developable
surfaces to planar quad dominant meshes. The output of our algorithm consists
of planar quadrilateral (PQ) strips that are aligned to principal curvature
directions and closely approximate the curved parts of the input developable,
and planar polygons representing the flat parts of the input. Developable
PQ-strip meshes are useful in many areas of shape modeling, thanks to the
simplicity of fabrication from flat sheet material. Unfortunately, they are
difficult to model due to their restrictive combinatorics and locking issues.
Other representations of developable surfaces, such as arbitrary triangle or
quad meshes, are more suitable for interactive freeform modeling, but generally
have non-planar faces or are not aligned to principal curvatures. Our method
leverages the modeling flexibility of non-ruling based representations of
developable surfaces, while still obtaining developable, curvature aligned
PQ-strip meshes. Our algorithm optimizes for a scalar function on the input
mesh, such that its level sets are extrinsically straight and align well to the
locally estimated ruling directions. The condition that guarantees straight
level sets is nonlinear of high order and numerically difficult to enforce in a
straightforward manner. We devise an alternating optimization method that makes
our problem tractable and practical to compute. Our method works automatically
on any developable input, including multiple patches and curved folds, without
explicit domain decomposition. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach
on a variety of developable surfaces and show how our remeshing can be used
alongside handle based interactive freeform modeling of developable shapes.

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