# getting the coordinates of the boundary of a 3d region

I recently meet a problem of finding the points on the boundary of a 3D object, e.g., the points on a cylinder below:

a1 = Cylinder[{{0, 0, 0}, {1, 0, 0}}, 1];Graphics3D[a1]


I'm going to work on some more complex objects, which is to be obtained by ImplicitRegion, but I guess the process should be similar.

My question is, I'd like to get a list of the boundaries points similar to what we will get in a discretization method. E.g., if I use the spherical coordinates, I may discretize the two angles and calculate the corresponding radius, or if I use the Cartesian coordinates, I may discretize z and x then seeking for the corresponding y.

So how do I get such a list of data? I prefer to get the 3D list if possible. And how do I set the desired accuracy, like the increment I set in the discretization method? My wild guess is to generate a mesh on it, e.g. using the DiscretizeRegion, but I'm not sure if it is going to work or how. Thanks a lot.

• When you say "the points"... well, of course there is an infinite number of points on the boundary of your cylinder. What do you really want? And why? – David G. Stork Mar 6 '17 at 17:15
• @DavidG.Stork, hi, what I mean is a list of points, that are similar to what I would obtain via a discretization method, as I described in the problem. and I would like to be able to control how the points are distributed, like I discrete the x and z values with fixed increment, and find the corresponding y, and I preferably I'd like to get a 3D list of dimension n_zn_x*3 instead of a 2D list of (n_zn_x)*3. Thanks. – larry Mar 6 '17 at 18:12

You can first discretize the boundary of the region with BoundaryDiscretizeRegion, and then get the points with MeshCoordinates, like so:
ClearAll[cyl, its, trans];