Flexible isosurfaces: Simplifying and displaying scalar topology using the contour tree

The contour tree is an abstraction of a scalar field that encodes the nesting relationships of isosurfaces. We show how to use the contour tree to represent individual contours of a scalar field, how to simplify both the contour tree and the topology of the scalar field, how to compute and store geometric properties for all possible contours in the contour tree, and how to use the simplified contour tree as an interface for exploratory visualization. two fundamental papers: marching cubes [22], and continuation [44], both of which that a polyhedral mesh underlies the scalar field. In each case, the isosurface is separately approximated in each cell of the mesh with a triangulated surface. Marching cubes tests every cell of the mesh but does not in general extract one contour at a time, instead triangulating individual cells in arbitrary order. Continuation , on the other hand, propagates outwards from an initial seed to generate the isosurface. With minor modifications, this can be performed one contour at a time. extracting single contours, continuation method instead marching cubes.