Enabling cuts on multiresolution representation

Multi-resolution representations are widely used in many data visualization contexts and applications. The adoption of a multi-resolution approach provides the optimal management of a data representation, using at each instant of time a level of detail that is more adequate for the given action or task to be performed. Recently, multi-resolution has also been introduced into the interactive physically-based simulation of deformable objects (e.g. in virtual surgery applications). In these applications, the processing resources available are often insufficient and pose a critical constraint. The adoption of multi-resolution allows one to improve the accuracy of the simulation in the proximity of the action focus while maintaining computations under a given bound. In this particular context, the user should be able to perform cuts in the object. The problem is that most multi-resolution models need a pre-processing phase in which the data structure is constructed. Such a construction strictly depends on the topology of the object, which is supposed to be invariable. We propose a new approach for the dynamic topological modification of a multi-resolution model, which allows easy updating of the multi-resolution data structure (based on the multi-resolution triangulation framework), and efficient decomposition of the cells intersected by the cut. With respect to previous methods, our solution supports a much lower degree of fragmentation of the decomposition and very short processing times, due to the design of a lookup table (LUT) based splitting solution.