Extending the CSG Tree. Warping, Blending and Boolean Operations in an Implicit Surface Modeling System

Abstract

Automatic blending has characterized the major advantage of implicit surface modeling systems. Recently, the introduction of deformations based on space warping and Boolean operations between primitives has increased the usefulness of such systems. We propose a further enhancement which will extend the range of models that can be easily and intuitively defined with a skeletal implicit surface system. We describe a hierarchical method which allows arbitrary compositions of models that make use of blending, warping and Boolean operations. We call this structure the BlobTree. Blending and space warping are treated in the same way as union, difference and intersection, i.e. as nodes in the BlobTree. The traversal of the BlobTree is described along with two rendering algorithms; a polygonizer and a ray tracer. We present some examples of interesting models which can be made easily using our approach that would be very difficult to represent with conventional systems.