Supporting Interactive Haptic Shaping of 3D Geologic Surfaces with Deformation Property Painting

Abstract

Meshes made from 3D points are used to represent many important geoscience concepts such as the surface of the earth (topography), rock strata (horizons) and faults. When creating a complex computer model, a geoscientist may need to directly manipulate the shape of such a surface to reflect conflicting information from additional data sources. We present a method that allows a geoscientist to precisely interact with these surfaces by painting the surface with colors that represent its local "malleability" (deformation property values) and to interactively deform this surface into the desired shape. Since the deformation property values create an inhomogeneous mesh, we explore several adaptations of the Generalized ChainMail algorithm to allow it to support inhomogeneous mesh deformation at interactive rates. By extending the Generalized ChainMail algorithm to use a FIFO-preserving priority queue to store the candidates awaiting deformation, we can perform inhomogeneous mesh deformations at interactive rates. We present a comparison of this FIFO-preserving priority queue with a simple priority queue and with a simple FIFO queue. Both painting and deforming are part of a larger system for haptic-visual mesh manipulation, in which we explore combinations of bimanual, touchenhanced virtual tools for interactions with 3D geoscience data.