Deformable Modeling Overview
List of: Discussion Topic
Subjects: Deformable Surfaces
Contents: Standalone Deformable Modeling

Deformable modeling is a surfacing tool that allows you to easily modify all or part of curves and surfaces. It is useful for feature creation, feature modification, and surface adjustment. Since it uses a physics-based "rubber sheet" model, the modeling process is close to real-life processes, thus easy to use. And since it does not require control point manipulation, the computing cost is relatively low.

Feature creation allows you to make a bump, cover, or dome on a surface. For example, applying a distributed pressure to a square patch creates a raised area on the surface (see the Scheme extension ds:add-dist-press for details).

Feature modification includes the whole range of deformations.

Surface adjustment includes imposing continuity. For example, any deformable surface or curve can contain any number of child patches. A child patch may attach to its parent with either C0 (position only) or C1 (position and tangent) continuity. C0 patches allow a curve with corners to be defined, and C1 patches make smooth composite curves.

The physics-based interface makes it easy to think of deforming a model in terms of actual physical objects and behaviors. The material properties control how much the model resists bending and stretching. You can use the default-shape feature to deform shapes very far from their original shape by breaking one large deformation into a set of smaller deformations interspersed with default shape captures. Or, you can give a model a "preferred shape" to constrain its deformation. Constraints are used to limit and control deformations. Loads are used to pull or push.

Deformable modeling controls many degrees of freedom (control points) with only a few parameters, such as target locations and load gains. This greatly reduces computation time and simplifies coding.
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