I'm looking for a way to represent a dynamic transform hierarchy (i.e. one where nodes can be inserted and removed arbitrarily) that's a bit more efficient than using a standard tree of pointers . I saw the answers to this question ( Efficient structure for representing a transform hierarchy. ), but as far as I can determine the tree-as-array approach only works for static hierarchies or dynamic ones where nodes have a fixed number of children (both deal-breakers for me). I'm probably wrong about that but could anyone point out how? If I'm not wrong are there other alternatives that work for dynamic hierarchies?