Cyclides in pure blending I

In this paper, we study blends between natural quadrics using both Dupin ring cyclides and parabolic cyclides. We present a new definition of a pure cyclide blend that we believe will help ensure the blend surface is useful to a designer. This definition will force the construction of nonsingular cyclide blends, deliberately excluding cyclide joins and singular surfaces. Further, we study the implications of the cyclide blend definition on the position of the quadrics in a blend and on the properties of the blending cyclide's extreme circles. This is the first part of a two part paper.     

Cyclides in pure blending II

In this the second of a two part paper, we continue our study of pure blends between natural quadrics using both Dupin ring cyclides and parabolic cyclides. Note, we make a distinction between blends and joins. If and only if conditions for the existence of cyclide blends and constructive proofs of their correctness are given in each quadric/quadric case. Easily implementable tests are given for these conditions. The relationship of the existence of cyclide blends to the common inscribed sphere condition is examined. Finally, an example that contains at least one of each type of cyclide blend is presented.     

Darboux cyclides and webs from circles

Motivated by potential applications in architecture, we study Darboux cyclides. These algebraic surfaces of order ?4 are a superset of Dupin cyclides and quadrics, and they carry up to six real families of circles. Revisiting the classical approach to these surfaces based on the spherical model of 3D Möbius geometry, we provide computational tools for the identification of circle families on a given cyclide and for the direct design of those. In particular, we show that certain triples of circle families may be arranged as so-called hexagonal webs, and we provide a complete classification of all possible hexagonal webs of circles on Darboux cyclides.     

Do blending and offsetting commute for Dupin cyclides?

A common method for constructing blending Dupin cyclides for two cones having a common inscribed sphere of radius r>0 involves three steps: (1) computing the (−r) -offsets of the cones so that they share a common vertex, (2) constructing a blending cyclide for the offset cones, and (3) computing the r -offset of the cyclide. Unfortunately, this process does not always work properly. Worse, for some half-cones cases, none of the blending cyclides can be constructed this way. This paper studies this problem and presents two major contributions. First, it is shown that the offset construction is correct for the case of ≠−r , where is the signed offset value; otherwise, a procedure must be followed for properly selecting a pair of principal circles of the blending cyclide. Second, based on Shene's construction in “Blending two cones with Dupin cyclides”, CAGD, 15 (1998) 643–673, a new algorithm is available for constructing all possible blending cyclides for two half-cones. This paper also examines Allen and Dutta's theory of pure blends, which uses the offset construction. To help overcome the difficulties of Allen and Dutta's method, this paper suggests a new algorithm for constructing all possible pure blends. Thus, Shene's diagonal construction is better and more reliable than the offset construction.     

Construction of Bézier rectangles and triangles on the symmetric Dupin horn cyclide by means of inversion

Dupin cyclides may be obtained as offsets of a special Dupin cyclide, the so-called symmetric Dupin horn cyclide. A novel approach based on the concept of inversion is presented for generating rational Bézier patches on the symmetric Dupin horn cyclide. This leads to a new formulation for rational rectangular biquadratic cyclide Bézier patches, and to a rational Bézier representation of triangular patches of degree 4 on the symmetric Dupin horn cyclide.     

Role of moving planes and moving spheres following Dupin cyclides

We provide explicit representations of three moving planes that form a μ-basis for a standard Dupin cyclide. We also show how to compute μ-bases for Dupin cyclides in general position and orientation from their implicit equations. In addition, we describe the role of moving planes and moving spheres in bridging between the implicit and rational parametric representations of these cyclides.     

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     

Iterative construction of Dupin cyclide characteristic circles using non-stationary Iterated Function Systems (IFS)

A Dupin cyclide can be defined, in two different ways, as the envelope of an one-parameter family of oriented spheres. Each family of spheres can be seen as a conic in the space of spheres. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to compute a characteristic circle of a Dupin cyclide from a point and the tangent at this point in the space of spheres. Then, we propose iterative algorithms (in the space of spheres) to compute (in 3D space) some characteristic circles of a Dupin cyclide which blends two particular canal surfaces. As a singular point of a Dupin cyclide is a point at infinity in the space of spheres, we use the massic points defined by Fiorot. As we subdivide conic arcs, these algorithms are better than the previous algorithms developed by Garnier and Gentil.     

Representation of Dupin cyclides using quaternions

Dupin cyclides are surfaces characterized by the property that all their curvature lines are circles or lines. Spheres, circular cylinders, cones and tori are particular examples. We introduce a bilinear rational Bézier-like formula with quaternion weights for parametrizing principal patches of Dupin cyclides. The proposed construction is not affine invariant but it is Möbius invariant, has lower degrees compared with the standard representation, and it is convenient for offsetting. Several important properties of Dupin cyclides can be recovered in terms of closed quaternion formulas: implicit equation, principal curvatures, representation as canal surfaces. Advantages of this approach are demonstrated by deriving a new formula for the Willmore energy of a principal patch.     

On modeling with rational ringed surfaces

A surface in Euclidean space is called ringed (or cyclic) if there exists a one-parameter family of planes that intersects this surface in circles. Well-known examples of ringed surfaces are the surfaces of revolution, (not only rotational) quadrics, canal surfaces, or Darboux cyclides. This paper focuses on modeling with rational ringed surfaces, mainly for blending purposes. We will deal with the question of rationality of ringed surfaces and discuss the usefulness of the so called P-curves for constructing rational ringed-surface-blends. The method of constructing blending surfaces that satisfy certain prescribed constraints, e.g. a necessity to avoid some obstacles, will be presented. The designed approach can be easily modified also for computing $n$-way blends. In addition, we will study the contour curves on ringed surfaces and use them for computing approximate parameterizations of implicitly given blends by ringed surfaces. The designed techniques and their implementations are verified on several examples.     

Bounded domain,bi-quadratic rational parametrizations of Dupin cyclides

Dupin cyclides, their applications in geometric modelling and their parametrization using bi-quadratic patches bounded by lines of curvature, have been investigated in recent years by a number of authors such as Martin, de Pont and Sharrock in 1986, Boehm in 1990, Pratt in 1990, and Degen in 1994. However, no completely reliable and general algorithm for the determination of bi-quadratic cyclide patches has appeared in the literature. This paper presents a new approach that produces any required bi-quadratic patch, bounded by lines of curvature, without non-intrinsic geometric constraints or restrictions. Specifically, if a bi-quadratic parametrization exists for the specified region of the cyclide, then it is correctly determined. Explicit formulae are given for the Bernstein weights and vectors of the parametrizations. The method is neither cyclide specific nor specific to the construction of bi-quadratic rational parametrizations – it may therefore be applied to other surfaces and to higher degree rational constructions.     

Branching blend of natural quadrics based on surfaces with rational offsets

A new branching blend between two natural quadrics (circular cylinders/cones or spheres) in many positions is proposed. The blend is a ring shaped patch of a PN surface (surface with rational offset) parametrized by rational bivariant functions of degree (6,3). The general theory of PN surfaces is developed using Laguerre geometry and a universal rational parametrization of the Blaschke cylinder. The construction is extended via inversion to a PN branching blend of degree (8,4) between Dupin cyclide and a natural quadric.     

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．     

Rational bi‐cubic G2 splines for design with basic shapes

The paper develops a rational bi‐cubic G² (curvature continuous) analogue of the non‐uniform polynomial C² cubic B‐spline paradigm. These rational splines can exactly reproduce parts of multiple basic shapes, such as cyclides and quadrics, in one by default smoothly‐connected structure. The versatility of this new tool for processing exact geometry is illustrated by conceptual design from basic shapes.     

Fast and Robust QEF Minimization using Probabilistic Quadrics

Error quadrics are a fundamental and powerful building block in many geometry processing algorithms. However, finding the minimizer of a given quadric is in many cases not robust and requires a singular value decomposition or some ad-hoc regularization. While classical error quadrics measure the squared deviation from a set of ground truth planes or polygons, we treat the input data as genuinely uncertain information and embed error quadrics in a probabilistic setting (“probabilistic quadrics”) where the optimal point minimizes the expected squared error. We derive closed form solutions for the popular plane and triangle quadrics subject to (spatially varying, anisotropic) Gaussian noise. Probabilistic quadrics can be minimized robustly by solving a simple linear system — 50× faster than SVD. We show that probabilistic quadrics have superior properties in tasks like decimation and isosurface extraction since they favor more uniform triangulations and are more tolerant to noise while still maintaining feature sensitivity. A broad spectrum of applications can directly benefit from our new quadrics as a drop-in replacement which we demonstrate with mesh smoothing via filtered quadrics and non-linear subdivision surfaces.     

Representation of arbitrary shapes using implicit quadrics

This paper is concerned with free-form surface constructions using implicit quadrics. More specifically, we are interested in the following problem: given a polyhedron with triangular facets and tangent planes prescribed at its vertices, fit a smooth (tangent-plane continuous), implicit, and piecewise quadric surface through the vertices of the polyhedron so that the surface is tangent to the prescribed tangent plane at each vertex. We show that in order to solve this problem without splitting the facets of the polyhedron, the prescribed tangent planes must satisfy a condition, and under this condition we give a local scheme for constructing the smooth piecewise quadric surface. Using this scheme, we can represent arbitrary shapes by quadric primitives. The implementation results are reported.     

Extreme simplification and rendering of point sets using algebraic multigrid

We present a novel approach for extreme simplification of point set models, in the context of real-time rendering. Point sets are often rendered using simple point primitives, such as oriented discs. However, this requires using many primitives to render even moderately simple shapes. Often, one wishes to render a simplified model using only a few primitives, thus trading accuracy for simplicity. For this goal, we propose a more complex primitive, called a splat, that is able to approximate larger and more complex surface areas than oriented discs. We construct our primitive by decomposing the model into quasi-flat regions, using an efficient algebraic multigrid algorithm. Next, we encode these regions into splats implemented as planar support polygons textured with color and transparency information and render the splats using a special blending algorithm. Our approach combines the advantages of mesh-less point-based techniques with traditional polygon-based techniques. We demonstrate our method on various models.     

Modeling with rational biquadratic splines

We develop a rational biquadratic G¹ analogue of the non-uniform C¹ B-spline paradigm. These G¹ splines can exactly reproduce parts of multiple basic shapes, such as cyclides and quadrics, and combine them into one smoothly-connected structure. This enables a design process that starts with basic shapes, re-represents them in spline form and uses the spline form to provide shape handles for localized free-form modification that can preserve, in the large, the initial fair, basic shapes.     

Fast Isosurface Rendering on a GPU by Cell Rasterization

This paper presents a fast, high‐quality, GPU‐based isosurface rendering pipeline for implicit surfaces defined by a regular volumetric grid. GPUs are designed primarily for use with polygonal primitives, rather than volume primitives, but here we directly treat each volume cell as a single rendering primitive by designing a vertex program and fragment program on a commodity GPU. Compared with previous raycasting methods, ours has a more effective memory footprint (cache locality) and better coherence between multiple parallel SIMD processors. Furthermore, we extend and speed up our approach by introducing a new view‐dependent sorting algorithm to take advantage of the early‐z‐culling feature of the GPU to gain significant performance speed‐up. As another advantage, this sorting algorithm makes multiple transparent isosurfaces rendering available almost for free. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness and quality of our techniques in several real‐time rendering scenarios and include analysis and comparisons with previous work.