Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ginosko!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!well!nagle
From: nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: iso-surfaces in SciVi
Message-ID: <13893@well.UUCP>
Date: 2 Oct 89 00:19:29 GMT
References: <19889@mimsy.UUCP> <5430@portia.Stanford.EDU> <16722@brunix.UUCP>
Reply-To: nagle@well.UUCP (John Nagle)
Lines: 16


      I've been trying out isosurfaces of vector, rather than scalar, fields,
in hopes that this might be useful in modelling skin on a skeleton.  The
idea is that with vector fields, you have more information, and by the
use of suitable combining functions, behaviors other than merging of
surfaces ("waterlike" behavior) can be obtained.  The obvious combining
function is just vector addition, but if you just add vectors, the
results are disappointing.  Think about what the sum of two vector fields
radiating from two points looks like.  Yes, there's a zero at the
midpoint between the two sources, but off the centerline, you have nonzero
values.  The resulting isosurface still looks like the one generated from
a scalar field, but there's a hole inside it around the midpoint.

      Anyone else tried this approach?

					John Nagle