An explicit spline representation of smooth free-form surfaces is combined with a hierarchy of meshes to form the basis of an interactive sculpting environment. The environment offers localized hierarchical modeling at different levels of detail, direct surface manipulation, change of connectivity for extrusion and to form holes and bridges, and built-in tangent continuity across the surface where wanted. The free-form surface is represented and can be exported either in NURBS form or as cubic

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... riangular Bézier patches. Key characteristics of the approach are: (1) mesh pieces and surface pieces are related by strictly local averaging rules; (2) refinement rules depend only on direct, coarser-level ancestors and not on adjacent submeshes or patches; (3) submeshes at different levels look alike. The underlying data structure is a single winged-edge structure with additional pointers to support the hierarchy. Multiply refined regions may be directly adjacent to unrefined regions, and mesh fragments at different levels of refinement can be connected.