GEOMETRIC DESIGN OF FUNCTIONAL SURFACES

The design of geometric shapes with physical constraints, such as hydr odynamic and aerodynamic constraints reflecting the functionality of t he shapes, remains an important problem in CAGD. This paper presents a method to design surfaces by incorporating physical constraints invol ving surface normal vectors. The design of functional surfaces is form ulated as a linear problem using vector calculus. The final surface is an integral non-uniform B-spline surface, which is the solution of th e linear equation system resulting from the least-squares fitting of t he given grid points and the normal vectors at these points. The geome tric design of propeller blade surfaces in conjunction with hydrodynam ic analysis illustrates the method. Copyright (C) 1996 Published by El sevier Science Ltd