1 Aims and Features of This Book The contents of t. his book were originally planned t. o be included in a book en titled Geometric lIIodeling and CAD/CAM to be written by M. Hosaka and F. Kimura, but since the draft. of my part of the book was finished much earlier than Kimura's, we decided to publish this part separately at first. In it, geometrically oriented basic methods and tools used for analysis and synthesis of curves and surfaces used in CAD/CAM, various expressions and manipulations of free-form surface patches and their connection, interference as well as their qualit. y eval uation are treated. They are important elements and procedures of geometric models. And construction and utilization of geometric models which include free-form surfaces are explained in the application examples, in which the meth ods and the techniques described in this book were used. In the succeeding book which Kimura is to write, advanced topics such as data structures of geometric models, non-manifold models, geometric inference as well as tolerance problems and product models, process planning and so on are to be included. Conse quently, the title of this book is changed to Modeling of Curves and Surfaces in CAD/CAM. Features of this book are the following. Though there are excellent text books in the same field such as G. Farin's Curves and Surfaces for CAD /CAM[l] and C. M.

Shape interrogation is the process of extraction of information from a geometric model. It is a fundamental component of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) systems. The authors focus on shape interrogation of geometric models bounded by free-form surfaces. Free-form surfaces, also called sculptured surfaces, are widely used in the bodies of ships, automobiles and aircraft, which have both functionality and attractive shape requirements. Many electronic devices as well as consumer products are designed with aesthetic shapes, which involve free-form surfaces. This book provides the mathematical fundamentals as well as algorithms for various shape interrogation methods including nonlinear polynomial solvers, intersection problems, differential geometry of intersection curves, distance functions, curve and surface interrogation, umbilics and lines of curvature, geodesics, and offset curves and surfaces. This book will be of interest both to graduate students and professionals.

Curved object manufacturing has become an important subject in modern industry as more varieties of industrial products are being designed with sculptured surfaces. Known as CAMM (computer-aided modeling & machining), the subject is rapidly becoming one of the most critical issues in CAD/CAM. Up till now, there has been a gap between the theory in CAGD (computer-aided geometric design) and the practices in CAMM. The aim of this volume is to fill the gap by presenting a comprehensive coverage of practical solutions for engineers, while at the same time providing problems for researchers. The main focus of the work is on the approach to and strategy for solving engineering problems. A sound understanding of the structure or domain of the problem as well as available techniques or tools is provided in each case, with the main emphasis being on descriptive shape models. The broad mathematical principles of CAGD are covered, in addition to some details of practical implementation. The book is self-contained in that an undergraduate level of algebraic calculus is sufficient to follow the discussions.

"Curves and Surfaces in Geometric Modeling: Theory and Algorithms offers a theoretically unifying understanding of polynomial curves and surfaces as well as an effective approach to implementation that you can apply to your own work as a graduate student, scientist, or practitioner." "The focus here is on blossoming - the process of converting a polynomial to its polar form - as a natural, purely geometric explanation of the behavior of curves and surfaces. This insight is important for more than just its theoretical elegance - the author demonstrates the value of blossoming as a practical algorithmic tool for generating and manipulating curves and surfaces that meet many different criteria. You'll learn to use this and other related techniques drawn from affine geometry for computing and adjusting control points, deriving the continuity conditions for splines, creating subdivision surfaces, and more." "It will be an essential acquisition for readers in many different areas, including computer graphics and animation, robotics, virtual reality, geometric modeling and design, medical imaging, computer vision, and motion planning."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The authors define fairness mathematically, demonstrate how newly developed curve and surface schemes guarantee fairness, and assist the user in identifying and removing shape aberrations in a surface model without destroying the principal shape characteristics of the model. A valuable resource for engineers working in CAD, CAM, or computer-aided engineering.

Computer disk contains: "data sets, as well as all of the C routines found in the book."

Computer Aided Geometric Design covers the proceedings of the First International Conference on Computer Aided Geometric Design, held at the University of Utah on March 18-21, 1974. This book is composed of 15 chapters and starts with reviews of the properties of surface patch equation and the use of computers in geometrical design. The next chapters deal with the principles of smooth interpolation over triangles and without twist constraints, as well as the graphical representation of surfaces over triangles and rectangles. These topics are followed by discussions of the B-spline curves and surfaces; mathematical and practical possibilities of UNISURF; nonlinear splines; and some piecewise polynomial alternatives to splines under tension. Other chapters explore the smooth parametric surfaces, the space curve as a folded edge, and the interactive computer graphics application of the parametric bi-cubic surface to engineering design problems. The final chapters look into the three-dimensional human-machine communication and a class of local interpolating splines. This book will prove useful to design engineers.