A deformable surface can be represented in many ways, from a triangulated mesh-controlled parametric approximation of fixed topology, to a time-varying set of implicit surfaces.

This paper emphasizes the merits of representing dynamic data in the latter form, and, more specifically, as isosurfaces (level-sets) of a user-defined function. The user can indirectly control the parameterization of the embedding function by working on volume data, and then solving a partial differential equation system to obtain the required volume flow data that characterizes and defines the isosurfaces. A useful quality of this type of deformable surface modeling is that it allows effective generation of three-dimensional objects of varying topology, and obtains all the isosurfaces corresponding to the embedding function at once. The drawback is that the process consumes significant time, although the paper suggests an acceleration solution based on time coherence, without supplying any statistical data to the reader.

The paper presents an interesting strategy for modeling deformable surfaces for simulation purposes, but provides minimal information and measurements regarding the applicability of the method. There are very few references to similar methods, and no comparative discussion at all. Otherwise, the paper targets a wide range of application areas and visualization techniques, making its classification under the application section “Projects in VR” seem a little narrow, or even out of place.