Tinlib is an open-source library for creating Triangulated Irregular Networks (TIN meshes) from raw XYZ data. As a bonus, it also creates a 'shrink wrapped' 2d vector outline of the data's boundaries (see screenshot below).

   It comes with two small demo programs that show how you can code it into your own graphical & surveying applications. Extremely portable, written in Gnu C, compiles in Linux, Irix and Cygwin+Gtk for Windows. (The text-only demo also compiles in DJGPP for DOS.)

  News: The old Tinlib infinte-loop bug has been fixed! It has been tested exhaustively and I'm pretty sure it can deal with any set of points you throw at it. The license has also been changed to LGPL. -November 7, 2005

  More News: Tinlib is now available in a .NET wrapper here. It comes with GUI demo programs written in C# and Visual Basic. To understand the C# API read the file tinner.cs, especially the methods create_random_points (input) and print_triangles (output). For the Visual Basic API study tinner.vb. This all works but the shrink-wrapped outline is not supported yet. -September 9, 2007