Trimming implicit surfaces

Abstract

Algorithms for trimming implicit surfaces yielding surface sheets and stripes are presented. These two-dimensional manifolds with boundaries result from set-theoretic operations on an implicit surface and a solid or another implicit surface. The algorithms generate adaptive polygonal approximation of the trimmed surfaces by extending our original implicit surface polygonization algorithm. The presented applications include modeling several spiral shaped surface sheets and stripes (based on M. Escher’s artworks) and extraction of ridges on implicit surfaces. Another promising application of the presented algorithms is modeling heterogeneous objects as implicit complexes.