Multilevel refinable triangular PSP-splines (Tri-PSPS)

A multi-level spline technique known as partial shape preserving splines (PSPS) (Li and Tian, 2011) has recently been developed for the design of piecewise polynomial freeform geometric surfaces, where the basis functions of the PSPS can be directly built from an arbitrary set of polygons that partitions a giving parametric domain. This paper addresses a special type of PSPS, the triangular PSPS (Tri-PSPS), where all spline basis functions are constructed from a set of triangles. Compared with other triangular spline techniques, Tri-PSPS have several distinctive features. Firstly, for each given triangle, the corresponding spline basis function for any required degree of smoothness can be expressed in closed-form and directly written out in full explicitly as piecewise bivariate polynomials. Secondly, Tri-PSPS are an additive triangular spline technique, where the spline function built from a given triangle can be replaced with a set of refined spline functions built on a set of smaller triangles that partition the initial given triangle. In addition, Tri-PSPS are a multilevel spline technique, Tri-PSPS surfaces can be designed to have a continuously varying levels of detail, achieved simply by specifying a proper value for the smoothing parameter introduced in the spline functions. In terms of practical implementation, Tri-PSPS are a parallel computing friendly spline scheme, which can be easily implemented on modern programmable GPUs or on high performance computer clusters, since each of the basis functions of Tri-PSPS can be directly computed independent of each other in parallel

Constrained reconstruction of 3D curves and surfaces using integral spline operators

In the context of direct/reverse engineering processes one of the main problem is the reconstruction of curves and surfaces starting from a cloud of points. Most of the times the (re)constructed curves and surfaces have to satisfy some particular geometric constraints and functional properties related to the desired shapes. In this paper, referring to 3D curves and surfaces, we propose an algorithm based on an interpolatory variation diminishing integral spline operator characterized by the presence of shape parameters. In order to choose the best value for the shape parameters different functionals can be adopted. Some test cases are presented in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm: both academic and real world test cases are considered

Geometric Surface Processing and Virtual Modeling

In this work we focus on two main topics "Geometric Surface Processing" and "Virtual Modeling". The inspiration and coordination for most of the research work contained in the thesis has been driven by the project New Interactive and Innovative Technologies for CAD (NIIT4CAD), funded by the European Eurostars Programme. NIIT4CAD has the ambitious aim of overcoming the limitations of the traditional approach to surface modeling of current 3D CAD systems by introducing new methodologies and technologies based on subdivision surfaces in a new virtual modeling framework. These innovations will allow designers and engineers to transform quickly and intuitively an idea of shape in a high-quality geometrical model suited for engineering and manufacturing purposes. One of the objective of the thesis is indeed the reconstruction and modeling of surfaces, representing arbitrary topology objects, starting from 3D irregular curve networks acquired through an ad-hoc smart-pen device. The thesis is organized in two main parts: "Geometric Surface Processing" and "Virtual Modeling". During the development of the geometric pipeline in our Virtual Modeling system, we faced many challenges that captured our interest and opened new areas of research and experimentation. In the first part, we present these theories and some applications to Geometric Surface Processing. This allowed us to better formalize and give a broader understanding on some of the techniques used in our latest advancements on virtual modeling and surface reconstruction. The research on both topics led to important results that have been published and presented in articles and conferences of international relevance

Invariant higher-order variational problems II

Motivated by applications in computational anatomy, we consider a second-order problem in the calculus of variations on object manifolds that are acted upon by Lie groups of smooth invertible transformations. This problem leads to solution curves known as Riemannian cubics on object manifolds that are endowed with normal metrics. The prime examples of such object manifolds are the symmetric spaces. We characterize the class of cubics on object manifolds that can be lifted horizontally to cubics on the group of transformations. Conversely, we show that certain types of non-horizontal geodesics on the group of transformations project to cubics. Finally, we apply second-order Lagrange--Poincar\'e reduction to the problem of Riemannian cubics on the group of transformations. This leads to a reduced form of the equations that reveals the obstruction for the projection of a cubic on a transformation group to again be a cubic on its object manifold.Comment: 40 pages, 1 figure. First version -- comments welcome