Counting cases in marching cubes: toward a generic algorithm for producing substitopes

Abstract

We describe how to count the cases that arise in a family of visualization techniques, including marching cubes, sweeping simplices, contour meshing, interval volumes, and separating surfaces. Counting the cases is the first step toward developing a generic visualization algorithm to produce substitopes (geometric substitution of polytopes). We demonstrate the method using a software system ("GAP") for computational group theory. The case-counts are organized into a table that provides taxonomy of members of the family; numbers in the table are derived from actual lists of cases, which are computed by our methods. The calculation confirms previously reported case-counts for large dimensions that are too large to check by hand, and predicts the number of cases that will arise in algorithms that have not yet been invented.