This paper provides a comprehensive overview of approaches to the determination of isocontours and isosurfaces from given data sets. Different algorithms are reported in the literature for this purpose, which originate from various application areas, such as computer graphics or medical imaging procedures. In all these applications, the challenge is to extract surfaces with a specific isovalue from a given characteristic, so called isosurfaces. These different application areas have given rise to solution approaches that all solve the problem of isocontouring in their own way. Based on the literature, the following four dominant methods can be identified: the marching cubes algorithms, the tessellation-based algorithms, the surface nets algorithms and the ray tracing algorithms. With regard to their application, it can be seen that the methods are mainly used in the fields of medical imaging, computer graphics and the visualization of simulation results. In our work, we provide a broad and compact overview of the common methods that are currently used in terms of isocontouring with respect to certain criteria and their individual limitations. In this context, we discuss the individual methods and identify possible future research directions in the field of isocontouring.

With the function RooTri(), we present a simple and robust calculation method for the approximation of the intersection points of a scalar field given as an unstructured point cloud with a plane oriented arbitrarily in space. The point cloud is approximated to a surface consisting of triangles whose edges are used for computing the intersection points. The function contourc() of Matlab is taken as a reference. Our experiments show that the function contourc() produces outliers that deviate significantly from the defined nominal value, while the quality of the results produced by the function RooTri() increases with finer resolution of the examined grid.

In this paper, an alternative design approach to the construction of bridge crane systems is analyzed with respect to the potentials and challenges of use based on two possible construction methods. Compared to conventional crane bridges, which are manufactured as a single part, the innovation of the approach relates to designing the crane bridge in segments and assembling it from standardized individual components, which are small in dimension, to form a plug-in structure. These are then prestressed by means of a tensile member to establish the load-bearing capacity. The motivation of the alternative design concept arises from a challenging manufacturing and costly transportation of common crane bridges. Here, the different design approaches are first presented as to how a segmental crane bridge can be constructed and which function the involved components fulfill. In this context, the novel construction method also gives rise to new constraints that are not covered by the common design standards and are therefore discussed. The paper concludes with a comparative study to identify advantages and disadvantages of both concepts regarding defined criteria with the aim of determining design improvements and elaborates the potentials and challenges of the approach with respect to a future industrial implementation. Moreover, these findings additionally form the basis for further research work in this area.