ME/MF F342:

Computer Aided Design

M4-1-Fundamentals of
Surface Modeling
BITS Pilani Dr. Srinivasa Prakash Regalla
Hyderabad Campus Department of Mechanical Engineering
Outline

 Why surface modelling

 Fundamental concepts of parametric surface patches

BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus

 BITS Pilani
Hyderabad Campus

Why Surface Modelling?

Why Surface Modelling?

Wireframe modeling can not be

used to model realistic
physical surfaces such as
those of ship hull, car bodies
etc.

Creating surfaces requires some

quantitative data (such as
points, tangent vectors) and
some qualitative data (such as
intuition of the desired shape
and smoothness)

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Interpolating and
Approximating Surfaces
Just like curves, surfaces can also be
interpolating as well as approximating

Bezier surface is an approximator

whereas B-Spline surface can be made
interpolator

In addtion to modeling geometric objects,

surfaces can be used to fit
experimental data, tables of numbers,
and discretized solution of differential
equations

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 Surface models: Advantages
and Diadvantages
Advantages:
 A surface model is a more complete and less ambiguous representation
than its wireframe model.
 Shading is available in surfaces and solids, not in wireframe models
Disadvantages:
 Surface models define only the geometry of their corresponding objects.
 They store no information about the topology of these objects.
 For example, if two surfaces share an edge, neither the surfaces nor the
edge (curve) itself have any information of this connectively in their
parametric representations.

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 BITS Pilani
Hyderabad Campus

General characteristics of
parametric surface patches
 Non-parametric surfaces
P  [ x y z ]T  [ x y f ( x)]T
P  Position vector of a point on the surface
The most natural form of f(x, y) for a surface
to pass through all the given data point is a polynomial
as shown below.
P(x,y,z)
p q
z  f ( x, y )   amn x m y n
m 0 n 0

where the surface is described by an XY grid of size

(p  1)  (q  1) points.

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 Parametric representation of surface
P(u , v)  [ x y z ]T v
vmax
 [ x(u , v) y (u , v) z (u , v)]T ,
vmin
umin  u  umax , vmin  v  vmax umin umax
u

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Concept of blending surface patches
C0 = position continuity

C1 = tangent continuity

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Topologically rectangular surfaces patches: Tangent
vectors of surface patch

4 vectors at any point

on surface:
- 1 -the point itself
- 2 tangent vectors
- 1 twist vector
16 vectors of input
needed to define the
surface patch:
- 4 corner points
- 8(=2*4) tangent
vectors
- 4 twist vectors

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 Tangent Vectors
The tangent vector at any point P(u, v) on the surface is obtained
by holding one parameter constant and differentiating with respect
to the other.Therefore there are two tangent vectors for each point.
Along the v  constant curve,
P x ˆ y ˆ z ˆ
Pu (u, v)   i j  k , umin  u  umax , vmin  v  vmax
u u u u
and along the u  constant curve it will be,
P x ˆ y ˆ z ˆ
Pv (u , v)   i j  k , umin  u  umax , vmin  v  vmax
v v v v
P01
In matrix form,
v
 x y z 
 Pu   u u u 
P
 P    x y z  P00 P11
 v  
 v v v  P10
u
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• Based on the nature of the surface at any point (ui, vj),
the tangent vectors in “u” and “v” directions,
 P   P 
  , and  
 u  Pij  v  Pij
at that point can be at any acute angle to
each other.
• When they are perpendicular to each
other, then their dot product is zero.
• The tangent vectors at the four corners P01
of the rectangular surface patch are
v
 P   P   P   P  
         P
 u  P00  u  P01  u  P10  u  P11  P00 P11
 P   P   P   P  
       
 v
P10
  P00  v  P01  v  P10  v  P11 
u

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MAGNITUDES OF TANGENT VECTORS AND UNIT TANGENT VECTORS
The magnitudes tangent vectors:
2
P  x   y   z 
2 2

 Pu         
u  u   u   u 
2
P  x   y   z 
2 2

 Pv         
v  v   v   v 
and the unit vectors,
Pu
nˆu 
Pu
Pv
nˆv 
Pv
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 TWIST VECTORS
• The twist vector at a point is the measure of twist
in the surface at that point.
• The twist vector is rate of change of Pu with
respect “v” or Pv with respect to “u”, or in other
words, it is the cross or mixed derivative vector
at the point.
• Considering the increments in “u” and “v” by
“Δu” and “Δv”, the incremental changes in Pu
and Pv at the point P(u,v) are obtained by
translating Pu(u, v+ Δv) and Pv(u+ Δu, v) to P.
• The incremental rates of change are (ΔPu/Δv)
and (ΔPv/Δu) and infinitesimal rates of change,
or namely the twist vectors are obtained by
taking the limits to these quantities as the
increments in the parameters approach zero.
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Twist vectors

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 Lim Pu Pu 2P
   Puv
v  0 v v u v 
Lim Pv Pv  P
2
   Puv
u  0 u u u v 
T
  x 2
 y 2
 z  2
Puv   
 
 u v   
u v   
u v  
 x ˆ
2
 y ˆ
2
 z ˆ
2
 i j k
u v  u v  u v 
umin  u  umax , vmin  v  vmax
Twist vector being zero at a given point does not necessarily imply that
the surface is not having twist at that point. This is because the twist
vector magnitude depends on the parametrization – for example, the flat
plane. Then what is the condition for zero twist? We will shortly see.
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 NORMAL VECTORS
• The normal vector or P P
surface normal at a N (u, v)    Pu  Pv
u v
given point on a and the unit normal
surface is a vector
N Pu  Pv
that is perpendicular nˆ  
to both the tangent N Pu  Pv
vectors at that point,
Pu and Pv.

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 THE OUTWARD AND INWARD NORMALS

P P
N outward (u, v)    Pu  Pv   Pv  Pu   N inward (u, v)
u v

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The normal vector is perhaps the
most important of all notions in the
analysis of surfaces, because of its
requirement in applications.

CUTTER OFFSET IN 3D CNC

In machining applications
the sense of unit normal
is chosen to be positive
when pointing out of the
surface being machined

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 In volume calculations and shading, the sense of unit normal is
considered positive when pointing toward the existing material and
negative when pointing to holes and open space.

Towards open
space

Towards
Material; use for
calculation of
volume

Shade on
this side
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The cusp of a cardioid
(surface formed by
spherical surface
patches)
self-intersecting disks

• The surface normal is zero

when the cross product of
tangent vectors is zero.

• It occurs at points lying on a

cusp, ridge, or self-intersecting
surface

Ridges
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Different types of parametric
surface patches
 Semi-analytic surface patches
 Plane surface
 Ruled surface
 Surface of revolution
 Tabulated cylinder (or surface)

 Synthetic surface patches

 Bicubic Hermite spline surface
 Bezier surface - Rectangular and triangular Bezier patches
 B-Spline surface
 Coons patches
 Gordon surface
 Fillet surface
 Offset surface

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End of the sub-module

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