Techniques of compressing triangular mesh data involve encoding a bitstream that defines a traversal order for vertices in a triangular mesh. The encoded bitstream defining the traversal order is in addition to an encoded bitstream of prediction errors and is an explicit, rather than implicit, traversal. One example of a bitstream that defines a traversal order is an array in which a bit signifies whether a step in an implicit, deterministic scheme such as a depth-first traversal. Upon decoding, the usual deterministic steps are used to find the vertices of the triangular mesh unless specified by the traversal bitstream. Such an encoded bitstream, when occupying less memory than that saved from the compression efficiencies gained in defining the traversal order defined in the bitstream, offers a simple, efficient compression without requiring that the triangular mesh be connected.