Set-based queries for multiscale shape-material modeling

TL;DR

This paper introduces a set-based query method for multiscale shape-material modeling that improves efficiency and reduces memory use, enabling interactive visualization of complex structures like Voronoi foams.

Contribution

It develops a set-based query approach that enhances existing point-based queries by leveraging locality, significantly speeding up processing for complex multiscale structures.

Findings

Order of magnitude speedup in ray-casting and slicing

Interactive frame rates for complex structures on CPU

Reduced memory footprint for multiscale modeling

Abstract

Multiscale structures are becoming increasingly prevalent in the field of mechanical design. The variety of fine-scale structures and their respective representations results in an interoperability challenge. To address this, a query-based API was recently proposed which allows different representations to be combined across the scales for multiscale structures modeling. The query-based approach is fully parallelizable and has a low memory footprint; however, this architecture requires repeated evaluation of the fine-scale structures locally for each individual query. While this overhead is manageable for simpler fine-scale structures such as parametric lattice structures, it is problematic for structures requiring non-trivial computations, such as Voronoi foam structures. In this paper, we develop a set-based query that retains the compatibility and usability of the point-based query while leveraging locality between multiple point-based queries to provide a significant speedup and further decrease the memory consumption for common applications, including visualization and slicing for manufacturing planning. We first define the general set-based query that consolidates multiple point-based queries at arbitrary locations. We then implement specialized preprocessing methods for different types of fine-scale structures which are otherwise inefficient with the point-based query. Finally, we apply the set-based query to downstream applications such as ray-casting and slicing, increasing their performance by an order of magnitude. The overall improvements result in the generation and rendering of complex fine-scale structures such as Voronoi foams at interactive frame rates on the CPU.