Multiresolution representation and deformation of wavelet-based 3D objects

Abstract

In a virtual sculpture project, we would like to sculpt in real-time 3D objects sampled in volume elements (voxels). The drawback of this kind of representation is that a very important number of voxels is required to represent large and detailed objects. As a consequence, the memory cost will be very important and the user/object interaction will be slowed down. In order to allow real-time performance, we propose in this paper a multiresolution model that represents the object with more or less detailed levels thanks to a 3D wavelet transform. We use the marching cubes algorithm to display a triangular surface of the 3D object in various resolutions. To update quickly this surface during sculpture process, we propose a storage method for all the triangles that allows to rebuild only the modified parts of the 3D object. Moreover, to speed up processing and user/object interaction, we also propose a cache system to store in memory the most frequently used levels of details of the 3D object.