In the following images the results of using particle systems to extract
isosurfaces from various data sets are shown. The isosurface produced
by marching cubes is shown in semitransparent yellow. The particles are
the red octahedra. Their size reflects the radius of repulsion, which
is based on the surface curvature at the current particle position. The
particles maintain a web of neighbor links for calculating replusion forces.
These links are shown as white lines. Blue lines represent the normals
to the surface at each particle position. In those images that do not
display the particles, the normals can be used to determine the particle
location.
Click on an image to see large version (Really large)
Equation taken from Wilhelms and Van Gelder's paper as an example
of a dataset which triggers the amgibuity problem with marching cubes.
Close up of F2 showing the ambiguity in marching
cubes (incorrectly linking the lobes of the hyperboloid). Note the
particles on the opposite lobes do not have neighbor links to one
another. They correctly see the lobes as separate disconnected componets.
