Approximate conversion of a rational boundary gregory patch to a nonuniform B-spline surface

A rational boundary Gregory patch is characterized by the facts that anyn-sided loop can be smoothly interpolated and that it can be smoothly connected to an adjacent patch. Thus, it is well-suited to interpolate complicated wire frames in shape modeling. Although a rational boundary Gregory patch can be exactly converted to a rational Bézier patch to enable the exchange of data, problems of high degree and singularity tend to arise as a result of conversion. This paper presents an algorithm that can approximately convert a rational boundary Gregory patch to a bicubic nonuniform B-spline surface. The approximating surface hasC ¹ continuity between its inner patches.