Patent ID: 7272608

Claim:
A method of extracting isosurface data from hierarchical node data, comprising: providing hierarchical node data representing an object, the hierarchical node data including a lowest hierarchy level having a plurality of leaf nodes and a plurality of higher hierarchy levels each having a plurality of non-leaf nodes each encompassing ones of the plurality of leaf nodes; and building a splat hierarchy from the hierarchical node data without converting the hierarchical node data into mesh data, wherein building the splat hierarchy comprises: determining a plurality of leaf node splats each corresponding to one of the plurality of leaf nodes that includes a portion of an isosurface, each of the plurality of leaf node splats based on scalar data corresponding to at least one of the plurality of leaf nodes; and determining a plurality of non-leaf node splats each corresponding to one of the plurality of non-leaf nodes that includes a portion of the isosurface, each of the plurality of non-leaf node splats based on a plurality of splats each corresponding to a lower hierarchical node.