Patent ID: 8010330

Claim:
A method of extracting a surface from a particle system, the method comprising: receiving a first instantaneous state representing a particle system at a first time and a second instantaneous state representing the particle system at a second time, wherein the first and second instantaneous states of the particle system include particle positions and particle velocities; discretizing a space surrounding the particle system into volume elements; assigning signed distance values to the volume elements based on the particle positions in the first and second instantaneous states; determining velocity values for at least a portion of the volume elements at the first time based on the particle velocities in the first instantaneous state; for each volume element having a velocity value, selecting at least one volume element at the second time corresponding with the volume element at the first time based on its velocity value; determining a temporally coherent signed distance value for each volume element having a velocity value, wherein the temporally coherent signed distance value of the each volume element is based on its assigned signed distance value at the first time and the assigned signed distance value at the second time of its respective selected volume element; and using a computer processor, extracting a surface using the temporally coherent signed distance values of the volume elements.