Curvature of singular Bézier curves and surfaces

This paper presents a general approach for finding the limit curvature at a singular endpoint of a rational Bézier curve and the singular corner of a rational Bézier surface patch. Conditions for finite Gaussian and mean limit curvatures are expressed in terms of the rank of a matrix.     

Boundary evaluation for interval Bézier curve

The objective of this paper is to provide an efficient and reliable algorithm for representing and evaluating the boundary of the interval Bézier curve in 2- and 3-D. The boundary of the planar Bézier curve is represented by a sequence of Bézier curve segments with same degree and line segments in the order they are encountered when marching counter-clockwise along its boundary. The boundary can also be represented as a single B-spline curve having the same degree with the interval Bézier curve. The boundary of the 3-D interval Bézier curve is made up of trimmed Bézier surface patches and rectangular patches. Some examples illustrate our algorithms.     

Developable Bézier patches: properties and design

Geometric design of quadratic and cubic developable Bézier patches from two boundary curves is studied in this paper. The conditions for developability are derived geometrically from the de Casteljau algorithm and expressed as a set of equations that must be fulfilled by the Bézier control points. This set of equations allows us to infer important properties of developable Bézier patches that provide useful parameters and simplify the solution process for the patch design. With one boundary curve freely specified, five more degrees of freedom are available for a second boundary curve of the same degree. Various methods are introduced that fully utilize these five degrees of freedom for the design of general quadratic and cubic developable Bézier patches in 3D space. A more restricted generalized conical model or cylindrical model provides simple solutions for higher-order developable patches.     

Cubic Bézier approximation of a digitized curve

In this paper we present an efficient technique for piecewise cubic Bézier approximation of digitized curve. An adaptive breakpoint detection method divides a digital curve into a number of segments and each segment is approximated by a cubic Bézier curve so that the approximation error is minimized. Initial approximated Bézier control points for each of the segments are obtained by interpolation technique i.e. by the reverse recursion of De Castaljau's algorithm. Two methods, two-dimensional logarithmic search algorithm (TDLSA) and an evolutionary search algorithm (ESA), are introduced to find the best-fit Bézier control points from the approximate interpolated control points. ESA based refinement is proved to be better experimentally. Experimental results show that Bézier approximation of a digitized curve is much more accurate and uses less number of points compared to other approximation techniques.     

Geometric characteristics of conics in Bézier form

In this paper, we address the calculation of geometric characteristics of conic sections (axes, asymptotes, centres, eccentricity, foci) given in Bézier form in terms of their control polygons and weights, making use of real and complex projective and affine geometry and avoiding the use of coordinates.     

Progressive iterative approximation for triangular Bézier surfaces

Recently, for the sake of fitting scattered data points, an important method based on the PIA (progressive iterative approximation) property of the univariate NTP (normalized totally positive) bases has been effectively adopted. We extend this property to the bivariate Bernstein basis over a triangle domain for constructing triangular Bézier surfaces, and prove that this good property is satisfied with the triangular Bernstein basis in the case of uniform parameters. Due to the particular advantages of triangular Bézier surfaces or rational triangular Bézier surfaces in CAD (computer aided design), it has wide application prospects in reverse engineering.     

On Bézier surfaces in three-dimensional Minkowski space

In this paper, we study Bézier surfaces in three-dimensional Minkowski space. In particular, we focus on timelike and spacelike cases for Bézier surfaces. We also deal with the Plateau–Bézier problem in , obtaining conditions over the control net to be extremal of the Dirichlet function for both timelike and spacelike Bézier surfaces. Moreover, we provide interesting examples showing the behavior of the Plateau–Bézier problem in and illustrating the relationship between it and the corresponding Plateau–Bézier problem in the Euclidean space R³.     

Computing exact rational offsets of quadratic triangular Bézier surface patches

The offset surfaces to non-developable quadratic triangular Bézier patches are rational surfaces. In this paper we give a direct proof of this result and formulate an algorithm for computing the parameterization of the offsets. Based on the observation that quadratic triangular patches are capable of producing C¹ smooth surfaces, we use this algorithm to generate rational approximations to offset surfaces of general free-form surfaces.     

Simple determination via complex arithmetic of geometric characteristics of Bézier conics

We show how to compute in a straightforward manner the geometric characteristics of a conic segment in rational Bézier form, by employing complex arithmetic. For a central conic, a simple quadratic equation defines the foci location, and its solution furnishes not only an explicit formula for the foci, but also for the center, axis direction and linear eccentricity.     

Computation of the minimum distance between two Bézier curves/surfaces

We present an efficient and robust method based on the culling approach for computing the minimum distance between two Bézier curves or Bézier surfaces. Our contribution is a novel dynamic subdivision scheme that enables our method to converge faster than previous methods based on binary subdivision.     

An approximation of circular arcs by quartic Bézier curves

In this paper we propose an approximation method for circular arcs by quartic Bézier curves. Using an alternative error function, we give the closed form of the Hausdorff distance between the circular arc and the quartic Bézier curve. We also show that the approximation order is eight. By subdivision of circular arcs with equi-length, our method yields the curvature continuous spline approximation of the circular arc. We confirm that the approximation proposed in this paper has a smaller error than previous quartic Bézier approximations.     

Interpolating G Bézier surfaces over irregular curve networks for ship hull design

We propose a local method of constructing piecewise G¹ Bézier patches to span an irregular curve network, without modifying the given curves at odd- and 4-valent node points. Topologically irregular regions of the network are approximated by implicit surfaces, which are used to generate split curves, which subdivide the regions into triangular and/or rectangular sub-regions. The subdivided regions are then interpolated with Bézier patches. We analyze various singular cases of the G¹ condition that is to be met by the interpolation and propose a new G¹ continuity condition using linear and quartic scalar weight functions. Using this condition, a curve network can be interpolated without modification at 4-valent nodes with two collinear tangent vectors, even in the presence of singularities. We demonstrate our approach in a ship hull.     

An improvement on the upper bounds of the magnitudes of derivatives of rational triangular Bézier surfaces

New bounds on the magnitudes of the first- and second-order partial derivatives of rational triangular Bézier surfaces are presented. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed bounds are tighter than the existing ones. The superiority of the proposed new bounds is also illustrated by numerical tests.     

Spherical quadratic Bézier triangles with chord length parameterization and tripolar coordinates in space

We consider special rational triangular Bézier surfaces of degree two on the sphere in standard form and show that these surfaces are parameterized by chord length. More precisely, it is shown that the ratios of the three distances of a point to the patch vertices and the ratios of the distances of the parameter point to the three vertices of the (suitably chosen) domain triangle are identical. This observation extends an observation of Farin (2006) about rational quadratic curves representing circles to the case of surfaces. In addition, we discuss the relation to tripolar coordinates.     

Curvature continuous offset approximation based on circle approximation using quadratic Bézier biarcs

We present a method for G² end-point interpolation of offset curves using rational Bézier curves. The method is based on a G² end-point interpolation of circular arcs using quadratic Bézier biarcs. We also prove the invariance of the Hausdorff distance between two compatible curves under convolution. Using this result, we obtain the exact Hausdorff distance between an offset curve and its approximation by our method. We present the approximation algorithm and give numerical examples.     

Blind digital watermarking of rational Bézier and B-spline curves and surfaces with robustness against affine transformations and Möbius reparameterization

We present a blind watermarking scheme for rational Bézier and B-spline curves and surfaces which is shape-preserving and robust against the affine transformations and Möbius reparameterization that are commonly used in geometric modeling operations in CAD systems. We construct a watermark polynomial with real coefficients of degree four which has the watermark as the cross-ratio of its complex roots. We then multiply the numerator and denominator of the original curve or surface by this polynomial, increasing its degree by four but preserving its shape. Subsequent affine transformations and Möbius reparameterization leave the cross-ratio of these roots unchanged. The watermark can be extracted by finding all the roots of the numerator and denominator of the curve or surface: the cross-ratio of the four common roots will be the watermark. Experimental results confirm both the shape-preserving property and its robustness against attacks by affine transformations and Möbius reparameterization.     

A comparison of local parametric C Bézier interpolants for triangular meshes

Parametric curved shape surface schemes interpolating vertices and normals of a given triangular mesh with arbitrary topology are widely used in computer graphics for gaming and real-time rendering due to their ability to effectively represent any surface of arbitrary genus. In this context, continuous curved shape surface schemes using only the information related to the triangle corresponding to the patch under construction, emerged as attractive solutions responding to the requirements of resource-limited hardware environments. In this paper we provide a unifying comparison of the local parametric C⁰ curved shape schemes we are aware of, based on a reformulation of their original constructions in terms of polynomial Bézier triangles. With this reformulation we find a geometric interpretation of all the schemes that allows us to analyse their strengths and shortcomings from a geometrical point of view. Further, we compare the four schemes with respect to their computational costs, their reproduction capabilities of analytic surfaces and their response to different surface interrogation methods on arbitrary triangle meshes with a low triangle count that actually occur in their real-world use.     

Multi-degree reduction of Bézier curves using reparameterization

L₂-norms are often used in the multi-degree reduction problem of Bézier curves or surfaces. Conventional methods on curve cases are to minimize , where and are the given curve and the approximation curve, respectively. A much better solution is to minimize , where is the closest point to point , that produces a similar effect as that of the Hausdorff distance. This paper uses a piecewise linear function L(t) instead of t to approximate the function φ(t) for a constrained multi-degree reduction of Bézier curves. Numerical examples show that this new reparameterization-based method has a much better approximation effect under Hausdorff distance than those of previous methods.     

Constrained approximation of rational Bézier curves based on a matrix expression of its end points continuity condition

For high order interpolations at both end points of two rational Bézier curves, we introduce the concept of C^(v,u)-continuity and give a matrix expression of a necessary and sufficient condition for satisfying it. Then we propose three new algorithms, in a unified approach, for the degree reduction of Bézier curves, approximating rational Bézier curves by Bézier curves and the degree reduction of rational Bézier curves respectively; all are in L₂ norm and C^(v,u)-continuity is satisfied. The algorithms for the first and second problems can get the best approximation results, and for the third one, resorting to the steepest descent method in numerical optimization obtains a series of degree reduced curves iteratively with decreasing approximation errors. Compared to some well-known algorithms for the degree reduction of rational Bézier curves, such as the uniformizing weights algorithm, canceling the best linear common divisor algorithm and shifted Chebyshev polynomials algorithm, the new one presented here can give a better approximation error, do multiple degrees of reduction at a time and preserve high order interpolations at both end points.