Abstract: We describe a multiresolution representation for meshes based on subdivision, which is a natural extension of the existing patch-based surface representations. Combining subdivision and the smoothing algorithms of Taubin [26] allows us to construct a set of algorithms for interactive multiresolution editing of complex hierarchical meshes of arbitrary topology. The simplicity of the underlying algorithms for refinement and coarsification enables us to make them local and adaptive, thereby considerably improving their efficiency. We have built a scalable interactive multiresolution editing system based on such algorithms.