ABSTRACT
Distance fields (DFs) can be viewed as a way to represent surfaces (and solids). They are a very powerful data structure, because they contain a huge amount of information. DFs have close relationships to isosurfaces and implicit functions. This chapter discusses the computation and representation of DFs. Usually DFs are represented using octrees, because they are simple to construct, offer fairly good adaptivity, and allow for easy algorithms. This representation is called an adaptively sampled distance field. The propagation method bears some resemblance to region growing and flood filling algorithms, and is also called the chamfer method. It can produce only approximations of the exact DF. The chapter also discusses the applications of DFs, including morphing and modeling.
