Interactive implicit modeling with hierarchical spatial caching

Complex implicit CSG models can be represented hierarchically as a tree of nodes (the BlobTree) . However, current methods cannot be used to visualize changes made to these models at interactive rates due to the large number of potential field evaluations required. A hierarchical spatial caching technique is presented which accelerates evaluations of the potential function. This method introduces the concept of a caching node inserted into the implicit model tree. Caching nodes store exact potential field values at the vertices of a voxel grid and rely on tri-linear and tri-quadratic reconstruction filters to locally approximate the potential field of a sub-tree. A lazy evaluation scheme is used to avoid expensive pre-computation. Polygonization timings with and without caching are compared for a complex model undergoing manipulation in an interactive modeling tool. An order-of-magnitude improvement in visualization time is achieved for complex implicit models containing thousands of primitives.