Interactive Modelling of Shapes Using the Level–set Method

In this paper, we propose a technique for intuitive, interactive modelling of 3D shapes. The technique is based on the Level–Set Method which has the virtue of easily handling changes to the topology of the represented solid. Furthermore, this method also leads to sculpting operations that are very simple and intuitive from a user perspective. A final virtue is that the LSM makes it easy to maintain a distance field representation of the represented solid. This has a number of benefits such as simplification of the rendering scheme and the curvature computation. A number of LSM speed functions which are suitable for shape modelling are proposed. However, normally these would result in tools that would affect the entire model. To facilitate local changes to the model, we introduce a windowing scheme which constrains the LSM to affect only a small part of the model. The LSM based sculpting tools have been incorporated in our sculpting system which also includes facilities for volumetric CSG and several techniques for visualization.