Surface-surface intersection by hermite interpolation

Abstract

A fast heuristic to approximate the intersection curve of two surface patches was originally proposed by Sederberg and Nishita. The patches are rationally parametrized and they cut each other transversely. This paper reports a simple generalization that greatly improves the accuracy of the original heuristic. The generalization either avoids or attenuates the approximation error. Avoidance is achieved when the improved heuristic produces the exact intersection curve; attenuation is accomplished with an aggregate square distance formula guiding the selection of a generalized constraint for a better fit.