Bicubic Splines for Fast-Contracting Control Nets

Abstract

Merging parallel quad strips facilitates narrowing surface passages, and allows a design to transition to a simpler shape. While a number of spline surface constructions exist for the isotropic case where n pieces join, few existing spline constructions deliver a good shape for control nets that merge parameter lines. Additionally, untilrecently, none provided a good shape for fast-contracting polyhedral control nets. This work improves the state-of-the-art of piecewise polynomial spline surfaces accommodating fast-contracting control nets. The new fast-contracting (FC) surface algorithm yields the industry-preferred uniform degree bi-3 (bi-cubic). The surfaces are by default differentiable, have an improved shape, measured empirically as to highlight the line distribution, and require fewer pieces compared to existing methods.