Span Space Data Structures for Multithreaded Isosurfacing

A data structure that can enable efficient isosurface extraction on desktop (single- and dual-CPU) computers is introduced. The data structure enables avoidance of unnecessary processing in the isosurface extraction while consuming little memory. Incorporation of the data structure into multithreading strategies that allow exploitation of slack computational processing resources, especially on hyperthreaded CPUs, is also described.