Multiresolution isosurface extraction by volume partitioning

Abstract

We describe an isosurface extraction algorithm which can generate low resolution isosurfaces, with 4 to 25 times fewer triangles than that generated by marching cubes algorithm, in comparable running times. The key idea is to partition the volume in to variable-sized rectangular boxes and extract isosurface for each box. The flexibility of forming rectangular boxes instead of square boxes improves the triangle reduction ratio. It is faster than postprocessing triangle reduction algorithms to generate low resolution mesh though the triangles in the mesh may not be optimally reduced. The generated mesh also preserve the geometry details of the true isosurface. By climbing from vertices to edges to faces, the algorithm constructs boxes which adapt to the geometry of the true isosurface. Unlike previous adaptive cubes algorithms, the algorithm does not suffer from the gap filling problem.