Metamorphosis of Boolean Compound Soft Objects

Recent work has on combining techniques from Constructive Solid Geometry and Implicit Surface Modeling based on soft objects has resulted in a powerful modelling technique the models are known as Boolean Compound Soft Objects, or BCSO for short) which consists of a boolean expression with union, intersection, and set difference operators. The geometric primitives that form the operands are soft objects bounded by the iso-surfaces resulting from suitable potential fields. These potential fields are parameterized by configurations of so called skeletal elements. The resulting system, unlike most CSG systems, combines blended and unblended primitives. These models have many of the advantages of both implicit surface and CSG models. One technique that has proved useful in animation of implicit surface models is metamorphosis, smoothly changing one model into another. Since CSG models are defined by boolean expressions it is not obvious how to apply such a smooth change to CSG models. In this paper we describe work in progress on some techniques for metamorphosis between BCSO models. keywords Free form surface design, implicit surfaces, constructive solid geometry, computer aided geometric design