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Preface

This document provides a preface for a book on computer aided geometric design (CAGD). It summarizes the history and development of the field, from Renaissance naval architects using conic sections to modern representations using parametric surfaces and subdivision surfaces. It notes key breakthroughs in Bezier and B-spline curves and surfaces. CAGD has influenced fields like computer graphics, computational geometry, solid modeling, and more. The preface concludes by describing updates to the 5th edition, including new topics and programs available online.

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24 views3 pages

Preface

This document provides a preface for a book on computer aided geometric design (CAGD). It summarizes the history and development of the field, from Renaissance naval architects using conic sections to modern representations using parametric surfaces and subdivision surfaces. It notes key breakthroughs in Bezier and B-spline curves and surfaces. CAGD has influenced fields like computer graphics, computational geometry, solid modeling, and more. The preface concludes by describing updates to the 5th edition, including new topics and programs available online.

Uploaded by

swarn.mall
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Preface

Computer aided geometric design (CAGD) is a discipline dealing with compu-


tational aspects of geometric objects. It is best explained by a brief historical
sketch.^
Renaissance naval architects in Italy were the first to use drafting techniques
that involved conic sections. Prior to that, ships were built "hands on" without
any mathematics being involved. These design techniques were refined through
the centuries, culminating in the use of splines—wooden beams that were bent
into optimal shapes. In the beginning of the twentieth century, airplanes made
their first appearance. Their design (or rather, the design of the outside fuselage)
was streamlined by the use of conic sections, as pioneered by R. Liming [390]. He
devised methods that went beyond traditional drafting with conies—for the first
time, certain conic coefficients could be used to define a shape—thus numbers
could be used to replace blueprints!
The automobile, one of the defining cultural icons of the twentieth century,
also needed new design approaches as mass production started. In the late 1950s,
hardware became available that allowed the machining of 3D shapes out of
blocks of wood or steel.^ These shapes could then be used as stamps and dies for
products such as the hood of a car. The bottleneck in this production method was
soon found to be the lack of adequate software. In order to machine a shape using
a computer, it became necessary to produce a computer-compatible description
of that shape. The most promising description method was soon identified to
be in terms of parametric surfaces. An example of this approach is provided in

1 For more details, see [204].


2 A process that is now called CAM for computer aided manufacturing.
XV
xvi Preface

Color Plates I and III: Color Plate I shows the actual hood of a car; Color Plate
III shows how it is represented internally as a collection of parametric surfaces.
The major breakthroughs in CAGD were the theory of Bezier curves and
surfaces, later combined with B-spline methods. Bezier curves and surfaces were
independently developed by P. de Casteljau at Citroen and by P. Bezier at Renault.
De Casteljau's development, slightly earlier than Bezier's, was never published,
and so the whole theory of polynomial curves and surfaces in Bernstein form
now bears Bezier's name. CAGD became a discipline in its own right after the
1974 conference at the University of Utah (see Barnhill and Riesenfeld [34]).
Several other disciplines have emerged and interacted with CAGD. Compu-
tational geometry is concerned with the analysis of geometric algorithms. An
example would be finding a bound on the time it takes to triangulate a set of
points. Knowledge of such bounds allows a comparison and evaluation of dif-
ferent algorithms. The literature includes Prepata and Shamos [497] and de Berg
et al. [135]. Ironically, another book with the term computational geometry in
it is the one by Faux and Pratt [228]. It was a very influential text, but today, it
would be classified as a CAGD text.
Another related discipline is solid modeling. It is concerned with the repre-
sentation of objects that are enclosed by an assembly of surfaces, mostly very
elementary ones such as planes, cylinders, or tori. The literature includes Hoff-
mann [327] and Mantyla [416]. CAGD has also influenced fields such as medical
imaging, geographic information systems, computer gaming, and scientific visu-
alization. It should go without saying that computer graphics is one of the earliest
and most important applications of CAGD; see [238] or [9].
For this fifth edition, the most notable addition is a chapter on subdivision
surfaces that were of academic interest at best when the first edition appeared in
1988. A recent special issue of the journal Computer Aided Geometric Design
highlights some of the new developments; see [393], [432], [470], [579], [598],
and [631]. Other new topics include triangle meshes, more in-depth treatment
of least squares techniques, and pervasive use of the blossoming principle.
Each chapter is concluded by a set of problems. They come in three categories:
simpler exercises at the beginning of each Problem section, harder problems
marked by asterisks, and programming problems marked by "P." Many of these
programming problems use data on the Web site. Students should thus get a better
feeling for "real" situations. In teaching this material, it is essential that students
have access to computing and graphics facilities; practical experience greatly
helps the understanding and appreciation of what might otherwise remain dry
theory.
The C programs on the Web site are my implementations of some (but not
all) of the most important methods described here. The programs were tested for
many examples, but they are not meant to be "industrial strength." In general.
Preface xvii

no checks are made for consistency or correctness of input data. Also, modularity
was valued higher than efficiency. The programs are in C but with non-C users in
mind—in particular, all modules should be easily translatable into FORTRAN.
The Web page for the book is www.mkp.com/cagd5e. This page includes C
^*'^K^ programs, data sets, and errata.
As for all previous editions, sincere thanks go to Dianne Hansford for help
and advice with all aspects of the book.

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