When a clay model or industrial part is reverse engineered, B-spline s
urfaces are typically fitted to surface data points collected by a coo
rdinate measuring machine, or, in more recent times, a laser scanner.
The surface fitting procedure results in a patchwork of B-spline surfa
ces. Some of these patches may be required to blend smoothly with thei
r neighbours to a specified degree of continuity. Past research on sur
face patch continuity has focused on Bezier surfaces. In the paper, so
me of those techniques are modified and applied to B-spline surfaces.
An optimization method is presented which can achieve an approximate g
lobal G(1) continuity of a given patchwork of B-spline surfaces. The m
ethod is illustrated by a complex physical model, which is digitized b
y a 3D laser scanner, and reverse engineered to create a smooth CAD mo
del.