FAIRING SPATIAL B-SPLINE CURVES

Three-dimensional curves are playing an increasing role in ship-hull m odeling and many other areas of computer-aided design (CAD). The probl em of evaluating and improving the fairness of such a curve is conside red and three solutions (algorithms) are proposed representing all maj or methodologies currently pursued by CAD researchers: local fairing b y knot removal, and local/global fairing based on ''energy'' minimizat ion. The performance of the algorithms is studied for both cubic and q uintic B-splines using realistic test cases. Finally, a comparison wit h existing techniques is presented and some visualization tools for sp atial-curve fairing are briefly discussed.