Mesh segmentation, as a crucial step in model analysis and understanding, is vital to the success of the applications, e.g., the 3D reverse engineering and modeling by example. A number of recent works suggested segmenting 3D meshes on the basis of the cognitive psychology concept of "part salience", which comprises three dominant factors: the protrusion degree , boundary strength, and relative size of the parts of the inspected object. In previous works, the estimation of salient feature such

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... s protrusion degree is computation intensive. In this paper, we proposed a simpler measure of the protrusion degree based on the definition of 2D shape protrusion. With our new approach, the significant features can be successfully identified and extracted.