Here's the first claim, slightly reworded to be easier to read: > 1. A computer-based system for smoothing a mesh model of a three-dimensional object or surfac

Here's the first claim, slightly reworded to be easier to read: > 1. A computer-based system for smoothing a mesh model of a three-dimensional object or surface, the mesh model having a set of connected faces, each face being a geometric shape with a predetermined number of vertices and a corresponding number of edges, each edge connecting two of the predetermined number of vertices, each vertex being a data point describing the object or surface ... comprising: a subdivision [function] to check a first edge against a predetermined subdivision criteria; an insertion [function] to insert a new subdivision point along the first edge, the new subdivision point being inserted depending on whether or not the first edge meets the predetermined subdivision criteria; and an extrusion [function] to extrude the new subdivision point so that it lies on a curve, wherein the curve passes through the vertices connected by the first edge orthogonal to normal vectors at the vertices. (Some "subdivision criteria" are covered in dependent claims.) I'm not a graphics / computational geometry guy, so I don't know how common / standard this is. The last step about extrusion through a curve looks somewhat narrow to my non-ordinary skilled eyes. Are these steps what you had in mind? The 4th claim, however, is a doozy. As far as I can tell, it essentially covers recursively applying subdivision to only a selected subset of faces in a mesh: > 4. A method for refining a mesh model of a three-dimensional object or shape, the mesh model including a plurality of first geometric shapes, comprising the steps of: selecting at least one of the first geometric shapes; recursively subdividing each of the selected first geometric shapes into a plurality of second geometric shapes; and displaying each of the plurality of second geometric shapes. Again, not familiar with the field, but this one sounds incredibly broad. This was filed in 1999, so it has a few more years left.