The ability to cut through meshes in real-time is an essential ingredient in a number of practical interactive simulations. Surgical simulation, cloth design, clay sculpting and many other related VR applications require the ability to introduce arbitrary discontinuities through models to separate, reposition, and reshape various pieces of the model as needed for the target application. In addition, in order to provide the necessary realism for these applications, model deformations must be computed from an underlying physically-based model--most commonly a continuum-based finite element model.