Using particles to sample and control implicit surfaces - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Using particles to sample and control implicit surfaces

Andrew Witkin and Paul Heckbert
Conference Paper, Proceedings of 21st Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH '94), pp. 269 - 277, July, 1994

Abstract

We present a new particle-based approach to sampling and controlling implicit surfaces. A simple constraint locks a set of particles onto a surface while the particles and the surface move. We use the constraint to make surfaces follow particles, and to make particles follow surfaces. We implement control points for direct manipulation by specifying particle motions, then solving for surface motion that maintains the constraint. For sampling and rendering, we run the constraint in the order direction, creating floater particles that roam freely over the surface. Local repulsion is used to make floaters spread evenly across the surface. By varying the radius of repulsion adaptively, and fissioning or killing particles based on the local density, we can achieve good sampling distributions very rapidly, and maintain them even in the face of rapid and extreme deformations and changes in surface topology.

BibTeX

@conference{Witkin-1994-16003,
author = {Andrew Witkin and Paul Heckbert},
title = {Using particles to sample and control implicit surfaces},
booktitle = {Proceedings of 21st Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH '94)},
year = {1994},
month = {July},
pages = {269 - 277},
}