Virtual sculpting allows an artist or user to interactively shape and refine a three-dimensional computer model much the same way a sculptor would shape clay. Using this metaphor, a virtual sculptor would employ software tools such as a virtual knife or chisel to manipulate the model. We describe here a virtual sculping framework that provides a user-friendly interface to a set of sculpting tools. This framework, and thus the tools derived therefrom, is based on a vector field system. A vector field algebra is described which allows for simple creation of complex tools within this system. These tools are then placed in the user's 3-dimensional environemnt. The user applies these tools to objects in the environment to facilitate virtual sculping. A wide range of tools can be built in this fashion, several of which are described here. By using this unified framework as the basis of the toolkit, the toolkit is extensible, easy to use, and provides a powerful set of tools to the user.
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