Signed distance fields have been used in VFX since the mid-1990s. One of the first paper formalizing its editing techniques was by Ken Museth in 2002: http://

Signed distance fields have been used in VFX since the mid-1990s. One of the first paper formalizing its editing techniques was by Ken Museth in 2002: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/frey/applications/Museth%20K.,%20Level%20set%20surface%20editing%20operators.pdf http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/frey/applications/Museth%20K... My contribution to the field (in collaboration with Ken, the author of the above) is making these scalar volumetric representations more scalable via using a recursive hierarchical sparse representation: https://www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/imager/tr/2006/Batty_HRLE/ https://www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/imager/tr/2006/Batty_HRLE/ Ken Museth is now the head of R&D at Dreamworks Animation and picked up a Sci Tech Oscar two years for his level set work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FwOc4OSOR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FwOc4OSOR0