Parametric G n blending of curves and surfaces

We introduce a simple blending method for parametric curves and surfaces that produces families of parametrically defined, G ⁿ –continuous blending curves and surfaces. The method depends essentially on the parameterizations of the curves/surfaces to be blended. Hence, the flexibility of the method relies on the existence of suitable parameter transformations of the given curves/surfaces. The feasibility of the blending method is shown by several examples. The shape of the blend curve/surface can be changed in a predictable way with the aid of two design parameters (thumb weight and balance).     

用有理双三次Bezier曲面片混合二次曲面

提出一种二次曲面混合方法，混合曲面由2张有理双三次B6zier曲面片构成，它们之间保持G^2连续，混合曲面与二次曲面间保持G^1连续．给出了混合曲面片控制顶点的显式表示，通过修改2类混合参数可以直观地调节混合方向及混合曲面的形状．另外，混合5个圆锥曲面的例子表明，该方法为多个二次曲面的混合问题提供了有效途径．     

Blending surface generation using a fast and accurate analytical solution of a fourth-order PDE with three shape control parameters

In this paper, we propose to use a fourth-order partial differential equation (PDE) to solve a class of surface-blending problems. This equation has three vector-valued shape control parameters. It incorporates all the previously published forms of fourth-order PDEs for surface blending and can generate a larger class of blending surfaces than existing equations. To apply the proposed PDE to the solution of various blending problems, we have developed a fast and accurate resolution method. Our method modifies Naviers solution for the elastic bending deformation of thin plates by making it satisfy the boundary conditions exactly. A comparison between our method, the closed-form solution method, and other existing analytical methods indicates that the developed method is able to generate blending surfaces almost as quickly and accurately as the closed-form solution method, far more efficiently and accurately than the numerical methods and other existing analytical methods. Having investigated the effects that the vector-valued shape parameters and the force function of the proposed equation have on the blending surface, we have found that they have a significant influence on its shape. They provide flexible user handles that surface designers can use to adjust the blending surface to acquire the desired shape. The developed method was employed in the investigation of surface-blending problems where the primary surfaces were expressed in parametric, implicit, and explicit forms.     

三角域上三次DP曲面的扩展

给出了三角域上带双参数的四次DP混合函数,它是三角域上三次DP 基函数的扩展。分析了该组混合函数的性质并定义了三角域上带双形状参数的四次DP参数曲面。该组混合函数及其参数曲面分别具有与三次DP基函数及三次DP参数曲面类似的性质。当两参数为0时,可分别退化到三次DP基函数及三次DP参数曲面。研究表明,通过改变两个形状参数的取值,既可整体又可局部调整曲面的形状。     

Blending Parametric Patches with Subdivision Surfaces

In this paper the problem of blending parametric surfaces using subdivision patches is discussed. A new approach, named removing-boundary, is presented to generate piecewise-smooth subdivision surfaces through discarding the outmost quadrilaterals of the open meshes derived by each subdivision step. Then the approach is employed both to blend parametric bicubic B-spline surfaces and to fill n-sided holes. It is easy to produce piecewise-smooth subdivision surfaces with both convex and concave corners on the boundary, and limit surfaces are guaranteed to be C2 continuous on the boundaries except for a few singular points by the removing-boundary approach. Thus the blending method is very efficient and the blend-ing surface generated is of good effect.     

A weighted mean approach to smooth parametric representation of polygon meshes

A method for representing genus-zero polygon meshes by smooth parametric surfaces is described. A surface is defined by a weighted sum of linear functions, each describing a polygon face in parametric form. Rational Gaussian blending functions that adapt to the size and shape of mesh faces are used as the weights. The proposed representation has a very high degree of continuity everywhere and provides a smoothness parameter that can be varied to produce surfaces at varying resolutions. It is shown that the representation facilitates geometry processing of meshes. The use of locally supported weight functions as an alternative to rational Gaussian weights is also discussed.     

Computational methods for blending surface approximation

Blending surfaces form a smooth transition between two distinct, intersecting surfaces or smoothly join two or more disconnected surfaces and are normally procedural surfaces which are difficult to exchange and to interrogate in a reliable and efficient manner. In this paper, an approximation method for blending surfaces which are curvature continuous to the underlying surfaces with a non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS) surface is presented. The use of NURBS is important since it facilitates the exchange of geometric information between various computer aided design and manufacturing systems. In the method, linkage curves on the underlying surfaces are approximated to within a specified tolerance and cross-link curves are created using the linkage curves, a directional curve and the parametric partial derivatives of the underlying surfaces. Cross-link curves are lofted to form the blending surface and an adaptive sampling procedure is used to test the blending surface against specified tolerances. Cross-link curves are added, where necessary, and the surface relofted until the continuity conditions are satisfied to within specified tolerances. Examples illustrate the applicability of the method.     

Corner blending of free-form N-sided holes

Geometric modeling requires constructing blends between surfaces to meet manufacturing specifications, reduce stress concentrations in designs, and enhance aesthetics. Industrial engineers may design parts using different surface types to satisfy design requirements. Surface blending integrates the diverse representations. Because most CAD/CAM software uses parametric representations for curves and surfaces, blending techniques for parametric surfaces are more urgently needed than methods for implicit surfaces. The authors discuss a new method for parametric surface blending. They apply their corner blending technique to three- to six-sided holes and discuss corner blending of three sided holes for three different cases, each presenting different blending challenges     

Blending an implicit with a parametric surface

A method for blending an implicit surface with a parametric surface is introduced. The blending surface is defined as a collection of intersection curves of correlated pairs of surfaces. With a simple additional condition one can achieve G²-continuous transitions between the blending surface and the given surfaces.     

GeoBrush: Interactive Mesh Geometry Cloning

We propose a method for interactive cloning of 3D surface geometry using a paintbrush interface, similar to the continuous cloning brush popular in image editing. Existing interactive mesh composition tools focus on atomic copy‐and‐paste of preselected feature areas, and are either limited to copying surface displacements, or require the solution of variational optimization problems, which is too expensive for an interactive brush interface. In contrast, our GeoBrush method supports real‐time continuous copying of arbitrary high‐resolution surface features between irregular meshes, including topological handles. We achieve this by first establishing a correspondence between the source and target geometries using a novel generalized discrete exponential map parameterization. Next we roughly align the source geometry with the target shape using Green Coordinates with automatically‐constructed cages. Finally, we compute an offset membrane to smoothly blend the pasted patch with C continuity before stitching it into the target. The offset membrane is a solution of a bi‐harmonic PDE, which is computed on the GPU in real time by exploiting the regular parametric domain. We demonstrate the effectiveness of GeoBrush with various editing scenarios, including detail enrichment and completion of scanned surfaces.     

多项式混合曲线曲面方法构造

针对混合曲线表示及其求导和求积困难的问题,通过计算构造出一种多项式混合曲线曲面形式.当待混合曲线是多项式时,混合曲线也为多项式形式.该多项式混合公式可以推广得到任意参数连续C(n)和几何连续G(n)的混合曲线曲面.另外,在得到的混合曲线曲面族中构造出了新的更优能量光顺方程,通过设置参数可得到合适的混合曲线曲面.实验结果表明,文中提出的混合曲线曲面造型方法稳定、有效.     

Blending multiple parametric normal ringed surfaces using implicit functional splines and auxiliary spheres

First presented by Hartmann, closings (implicit surfaces sealing the inlets or outlets of pipes) can bridge the gap between parametric pipe surfaces and implicit functional splines (a powerful tool for blending several implicit surfaces). This paper proposes auxiliary spheres instead of the initial pipe surfaces as the base surfaces in constructing closings, so that the closing based algorithm of two steps (constructing a closing for each pipe and blending the closings) can G¹-continuously connect multiple parametric normal ringed surfaces with freeform directrices and variable radii. The basic theory of an auxiliary sphere tangent to the normal ringed surface is addressed. Either one or two (yielding more design parameters) auxiliary spheres can be added. How the parameters influence the closing configuration is discussed. In addition, the blending shape can be optimized by genetic algorithm after assigning some fiducial points on the blend. The enhanced algorithm is illustrated with four practical examples.     

带形状参数的类三次代数三角Hermite参数样条曲线

基于空间{1,t,sin t,cos t,sin~2t}提出了一类带形状参数的类三次代数三角Hermite参数样条曲线。该曲线不仅具有标准三次Hermite参数样条曲线的性质,而且在适当条件下能够精确表示圆、椭圆、抛物线等工程曲线。在给定插值条件时还可通过改变形状参数的取值对曲线的形状进行调控。同时,还基于光顺准则建立求解最优形状参数的数学模型,根据实际需要,该模型所求的形状参数能使得曲线达到C~1或C~2连续。实例表明,利用模型求解的最优形状参数能保证曲线具有良好的光顺性。     

Stripification of Free-Form Surfaces With Global Error Bounds for Developable Approximation

Developable surfaces have many desired properties in the manufacturing process. Since most existing CAD systems utilize tensor-product parametric surfaces including B-splines as design primitives, there is a great demand in industry to convert a general free-form parametric surface within a prescribed global error bound into developable patches. In this paper, we propose a practical and efficient solution to approximate a rectangular parametric surface with a small set of C ⁰ -joint developable strips. The key contribution of the proposed algorithm is that, several optimization problems are elegantly solved in a sequence that offers a controllable global error bound on the developable surface approximation. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and stability of the proposed algorithm.     

Cyclides in surface and solid modeling

It is shown that Dupin cyclides (C.P. Dupin, 1822), as surfaces in computer-aided geometric design (CAGD), have attractive properties such as low algebraic degree, rational parametric forms, and an easily comprehensible geometric representation using simple and intuitive geometric parameters. Their alternative representations permit the transition between forms when one or the other is more convenient for a specific purpose. Cyclides provide is useful extension of geometric coverage in solid modeling, primarily as blending surfaces for many commonly occurring situations. The geometry, properties, and uses of the Dupin cyclide in free-form surface modeling and blending are discussed     

Construction of flexible blending parametric surfaces via curves

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a method that allows to solve the blending problem of two parametric surfaces. The blending surface is constructed with a collection of space curves defined by point pairs on the blending boundaries of given primary surfaces. Bézier and C-cubic curves are used to interpolate the blending boundaries. The blending surface is Gⁿ continuously connected to the primary surfaces.     

Globally optimal surface mapping for surfaces with arbitrary topology

Computing smooth and optimal one-to-one maps between surfaces of same topology is a fundamental problem in computer graphics and such a method provides us a ubiquitous tool for geometric modeling and data visualization. Its vast variety of applications includes shape registration/matching, shape blending, material/data transfer, data fusion, information reuse, etc. The mapping quality is typically measured in terms of angular distortions among different shapes. This paper proposes and develops a novel quasi-conformal surface mapping framework to globally minimize the stretching energy inevitably introduced between two different shapes. The existing state-of-the-art inter-surface mapping techniques only afford local optimization either on surface patches via boundary cutting or on the simplified base domain, lacking rigorous mathematical foundation and analysis. We design and articulate an automatic variational algorithm that can reach the global distortion minimum for surface mapping between shapes of arbitrary topology, and our algorithm is sorely founded upon the intrinsic geometry structure of surfaces. To our best knowledge, this is the first attempt towards numerically computing globally optimal maps. Consequently, our mapping framework offers a powerful computational tool for graphics and visualization tasks such as data and texture transfer, shape morphing, and shape matching.     

Improved shape for multi-surface blends

For many design applications, where multiple primary surface pieces meet, the distribution of curvature is more important than formally achieving exact curvature continuity. For parametric spline surfaces, when constructing a multi-sided surface cap, we demonstrate a strong link between the uniform variation of the re-parameterization between (boundary) data of the joining pieces and a desirable distribution of curvature. We illustrate this interdependence between parameterization quality and surface quality by developing a G¹ bi-quintic surface cap consisting of n pieces that smoothly fills holes in a piecewise bi-cubic tensor-product spline complex. These bi-5 surface caps have arguably better shape than higher-degree, formally curvature continuous alternatives.     

Tunnel-free voxelisation of rational Bézier surfaces

To synthesize natural and artificial objects into a hybrid graphics scene represented by a set of voxels, voxelisation of geometric models is necessary. Rational parametric surfaces have been widely used in the representation of free-form surfaces. Voxelisation of these surfaces is therefore of great importance in the development of a voxel-based modeling system. A key issue is to develop a tunnel-free voxelisation algorithm for these continuous surfaces. In this paper, we propose such an algorithm for a rational Bézier surface. We derive the bound of the parametric steps to ensure that the voxelised rational Bézier surface is, by our algorithm, 6-tunnel-free, and we give the mathematical proof of this property. For efficient computation, we employ the forward difference technique in homogeneous form in the implementation of the algorithm. For more general applications, we show that voxelisation of a NURBS surface can be realised by first converting it into a piecewise rational Bézier surface and then voxelising each of the rational Bézier surfaces. We indicate the advantages carrying out this procedure.     

Extracting lines of curvature from noisy point clouds

We present a robust framework for extracting lines of curvature from point clouds. First, we show a novel approach to denoising the input point cloud using robust statistical estimates of surface normal and curvature which automatically rejects outliers and corrects points by energy minimization. Then the lines of curvature are constructed on the point cloud with controllable density. Our approach is applicable to surfaces of arbitrary genus, with or without boundaries, and is statistically robust to noise and outliers while preserving sharp surface features. We show our approach to be effective over a range of synthetic and real-world input datasets with varying amounts of noise and outliers. The extraction of curvature information can benefit many applications in CAD, computer vision and graphics for point cloud shape analysis, recognition and segmentation. Here, we show the possibility of using the lines of curvature for feature-preserving mesh construction directly from noisy point clouds.