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Variational Implicit Surfaces
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Variational Implicit Surfaces |
This image shows how a two-dimensional shape transformation can be viewed as successive slices of a variational implicit surface. Slices from top to bottom show a morph from an "X" to an "O." |
| Implicit surfaces have many advantages over parametric surfaces in applications such as CSG, shape transformations, and collision detection. We complement implicit surfaces with a variational approach: the implicit surfaces are the solution to an interpolation problem, an analogy of thin-plate splines. Our surfaces can pass exactly through user-specified points and are smooth. We investigate different ways of modeling and rendering the variational implicit surfaces, as well as applications, such as shape transformation and reconstruction. |
a horse modeled with variational implicit surfaces |
People involved with variational implicit surfaces:
Greg Turk
James O'Brien
Huong Quynh Dinh
Gary Yngve
This research is funded by ONR grant N00014-97-1-0223.