Isosurface

Iso-surfaces are surfaces that connect in the room adjacent points of the same features or values ​​of a certain size, such as temperature or density with each other. They are the three-dimensional counterpart of isolines that connect points on a surface.

The importance of iso-surfaces is in computer graphic visualization of scalar fields or grids.

In medicine used isosurfaces from datasets with density values ​​to represent the organ surfaces. The records occur, for example in computer tomography measurements. Another application is the preparation of molecules, the atomic layer is determined by electron microscopy.

The most common method for generating isosurfaces is called Marching Cubes and was introduced by Lorensen and Cline 1987.

Definition

The isosurface for a scalar field in the iso-value is the amount.

Three-dimensional isosurfaces are approximated as a rule from a finite set of data points (grid), for example, by triangle meshes.