In a recent work, Wang et al. [Wang G, Tang K, Tai CH. Parametric representation of a surface pencil with common spatial geodesic. Computer- Aided Design 2004;36(5): 447–59] discuss a constrained design problem appearing in the textile and shoe industry for garment design. Given a model and size, the characteristic curve called girth is usually fixed, and preferably should be a geodesic for manufacturing reasons. The designer must preserve this girth, being allowed to modify other areas according to aesthetic criteria. We present a practical method to construct polynomial surfaces from a polynomial geodesic or a family of geodesics, by prescribing tangent ribbons. Differently from previous procedures, we identify the existing degrees of freedom in terms of control points, and our method yields parametric polynomial surfaces that can be incorporated into commercial CAD programs. The extension to rational geodesics is also outlined.

Thegeodesic [2] between two pointsP,Q on a surface (Fig. 1) is defined as the curve embedded in the surface that connects the points with minimal distanced. In other words, geodesics can be regarded as the metric analogue on surfaces of straight lines on a plane. This property makes geodesics of interest in many engineering applications [3]. In particular, a geodesic on a developable surface maps to a straight line after unfolding the surface onto a plane.

Here we focus our attention on a problem related to geodesics that arises in garment design. Given a model and size, the characteristic curve calledgirth [1] is usually fixed (Fig. 2). The designer must preserve this girth, being allowed to modify other areas according to aesthetic criteria. Except for the case of developable surfaces, when the fabric or leather is flattened to the plane, the development implies some distortion. Formally speaking, a general doubly curved surface does not admit an isometric mapping to the plane, i.e., a mapping that preserves distances. This unavoidable distortion must be hence

Azariadis and Aspragathos [4]. The flattening hence preserves the length of the geodesic, which becomes a straight line (Fig. 1). This property is highly desirable for the girth curve, which means that the girth should be a geodesic on the 3D surface [1]. In addition, shoemakers naturally employ geodesics to cut patterns [5], so the possibility of specifying directly in the 3D surface such geodesic seams would be an attractive design option.

We have thus identified our constrained design problem: how to construct surfaces from a given curve (or several curves), such that the curve becomes a geodesic in the surface. This problem, for the simple case of one curve, was tackled by Wang et al. [1], who obtained a representation of the surface pencil that shares a given geodesic as an isoparametric curve. The solution provided in that seminal work certainly solves the mathematical problem, by furnishing the surface pencil in terms of certain sets of shape functions whose parameters the user must adjust to achieve the desired shape. Since such parameters lack intuitive geometric meaning, they must be computed via least square fitting by specifying a set of data points to approximate. In addition, no formulation in terms

ezier form is provided. A CAD tool in a design scenario should rather yield surfaces that adhere to the NURBS standard [6,7], and employ geometric shape handles, such as control points.

The paper is arranged as follows. In Section2, after briefly reviewing some fundamental concepts of differential geometry, we present our approach to overcome the shortcomings of previous methods, by constraining the surface through a tangent ribbon that specifies cross-boundary derivatives. In Section3 we analyze this basic building block, namely how to design a ruled surface from a given polynomial geodesic. Once such ruled surfaces have been defined, in Section4 we show how to construct a general surface from a geodesic or family of geodesics, and discuss examples of garment design. In Section5 we explain how to carry over these ideas to the case of rational geodesics. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section6.

To solve our constrained design problem, rather than employing the metric definition of a geodesic in terms of length minimization, we resort to the alternative characterization using local properties. A geodesicp0(u ) on a surface is the curve whose osculating plane, i.e., generated by the tangentt and normaln to the curve, encompasses the normal vectorN to the surface (Fig. 3). Equivalently, the vectorsn andN are always parallel, or the binormalb to the curve is tangent to the surface.

between geodesics andpregeodesics, related by reparameter- ization. For the sake of simplicity, either will be referred to asgeodesics throughout this paper, regardless of their pa- rameterization. In most commercial CAD systems, based on the NURBS standard, hardly ever are the input curves arc- length parameterized, since the straight line is the only rational curve that admits this optimal parameterization, as Farouki and Sakkalis [9] noted.

We have just concluded that the geodesic condition basically constrains the orientation of the tangent plane to the surface along the prescribed geodesicp0(u ). To facilitate the design and identify the degrees of freedom available in the surface construction, the natural approach is to split our constrained problem into two steps (Fig. 4):

1. Obtain the pencil of ruled surfaces (tangent ribbons [10]) that sharep0(u ) as boundary. The rulings correspond to the tangent lines inv-direction of the desired surfacep(u , v).

2. Identify the construction ofp(u , v) as a standard interpo- lation problem from these tangent ribbons determining the cross boundary derivatives.

For the case of a polynomial geodesic, the existing degrees of freedom are characterized in terms of control points in the B´

Given an arbitrary parametric curvep0(u ), we are to characterize those ruled surfacesp(u , v) such thatp0(u ) becomes anisogeodesic. This term, coined by Wang et al. [1], denotes a geodesic that is also an isoparametric line (v= 0). Usingp0(u ) as directrix, such ruled surfaces admit the parameterization:

whereq(u ) denotes the direction of the rulings. Not anyq(u ) is admissible, because it must guarantee the geodesic condition, namely a binormal vectorb(u ) alongp0(u ) that is always tangent to the surface. Since the tangent plane (Fig. 5) is that spanned byq(u ) and the tangentt(u ) to the curve,q(u ) must be spanned byt(u ) andb(u ) [1]:

ruled surfaces(1) sharing the isogeodesicp0(u ). They control how the rulings depart from the isogeodesic on the tangent plane and provide us with two shape handles to control the surface, namely a tensionβ(u ) and shear-like effectα(u ). Note thatα(u)= 0 simply yields rulings perpendicular to the geodesic, whereasβ(u)= 0 is not admissible, as it would not guarantee the geodesic condition. For a constantβ(u)= 0, the directions(2) would generate a developable surface withline

Expression(2) holds provided thatt(u ),b(u ) are vectors in tangent and binormal directions, not necessarily unitary, just by rescaling the functionsα(u ), β(u ). Therefore, we can employ a geodesic with arbitrary parameterization (not necessarily arc- length), and compute the tangent and normal directions directly from the derivatives ofp0(u ):

ezier isogeodesicp0(u ) deserves a detailed study. Restricting ourselves to polynomial functionsα(u ), β(u )(2), thenq(u ) and hence the ruled surfacep(u , v) are polynomial too. Its B´

ezier form, and rewritingp(u , v)(1)as the ruled surface with rulings connecting two directrixesp0(u ),p1(u ):

At first glance, the cross productb(u )(3)seems of degree 2m− 3. However, a closer inspection [11] reveals that its actual degree is only 2m− 4. In fact, a 3D polynomial curve is mathematically equivalent to the homogeneous representation of a planar rational curve, where the cross product(3) of curve and derivative appears in the conversion of a B´

ezier curve to its dual form [7]. In consequence,b(u ) is efficiently computed as the cross product of the two intermediate points

which is clearly of degree 2m− 4. Asb(u)(5) involves just additions and products of polynomial functions in Bernstein form, its list of control pointsbi admit a straightforward computation via discrete convolutions [12]. Pottmann and Wallner [13] also provide explicit expressions. In particular, for the cubic case (m= 3):

We hence conclude thatt(u ) andb(u ) have degreesm− 1, 2m− 4, respectively. If we want a ruled surface(4) of degree at most (m,1), then the multiplying functionα(u)(2) is linear, whereasβ(u ) is of degree 4−m. The sought ruled surface in B´