ABSTRACT
UP UNTIL NOW, WE HAVE CONSIDERED our volumetric object to be static. In medicine, engineering, and many other scientific disciplines, volumetric objects undergo dynamic nonlinear deformations. A prominent example arises in computer-assisted surgery, where tomography data from therapy planning must be deformed to match nonrigid patient motion during the intervention.
Volumetric deformation is also important as a supplement to traditional surface models in visual arts. As with almost all models in computer graphics, motion and dynamics are important means of conveying the artist’s intention. In this chapter, we are going to investigate possibilities of changing the shape of volumetric objects dynamically and interactively. Before we start looking at volumetric deformation techniques, however, we will first reconsider how deformation is performed with traditional surface descriptions.
