I could totally see something like this being useful or interesting for destructive physics in video games. Like, oh, this surface/shell is about to repulse a rocket slamming into it, deform it for this hit. It's be a very different application but there's a kernel of morphology here feels similar ish, of this kind of softbodied-at-a-distance simulation.
Based on other comments though it sounds way too slow to consider for realtime games though.
TL;DR: they are talking about approach to 3D geometry which avoids self-intersection by design, which is something useful for modeling solid bodies.
However, I hope someone makes a video about shells that are hard to use too :)
"Something something, rule 34."