The Freeform Surface Modelling System（自由曲面造型系统）.pdf

The Free-form Surface Modelling System 1. Introduction Smooth curves and surfaces must be generated in many computer graphics applications. Many real-world objects are inherently smooth (fig.1), and much of computer graphics involves modeling the real world. Fig.1. The sparrow, from Lithuanian villages and fields, requires a smooth, colorfull modelling. Computer-aided design (CAD), high-quality character fonts, data plots, and artists sketches all contain smooth curves and surfaces. The path of a camera or object in an animation sequence is almost always smooth; similarly, a path through intensity or color space must often be smooth. The need to represent curves and surfaces arises in two cases: 1. in modeling existing objects (a car, a face, a mountain); 2. in modeling from scratch (so-called image synthesis), where no preexisting physical object is being represented. The process of modelling is much easier, if mathematical description of an abject, or at least of part of an object may be applied. In the first case, however, a mathematical description of the object may be unavailable. One way of solution, is to use as a model the coordinates of the infinitely many points of the object, but this is not feasible for a computer with finite storage. More often, the object is merely approximated with pieces (called patches, in the case of surface modelling) of planes, spheres, or other shapes that are easy to describe mathematically, and require that points on the model be close to corresponding points on the object. In the second case, when there is no preexisting object to model, the user creates the object in the m