In this paper, two explicit conversion formulae between triangular and rectangular Bézier patches are derived. Using the formulae, one triangular Bézier patch of degree n can be converted into one rectangular Bézier patch of degree $n \times n$. And one rectangular Bézier patch of degree m × n can be converted into two triangular Bézier patches of degree $m + n$ . Besides, two stable recursive algorithms corresponding to the two conversion formulae are given. Using the algorithms, when converting triangular Bézier patches to rectangular Bézier patches, we can computer the relations between the control points of the two types of patches for any $n\ge2$ based on the relationships for $n=1$. When converting rectangular Bézier patches to triangular Bézier patches, we can computer the relations between the control points of the two types of patches for any $m\ge 2, n \subset N^+ $ and $n \ge 2, m \subset N^+$ based on the relationships for $m=n=1$.

NURBS surfaces are among the most commonly used parametric surfaces in CAGD and Computer Graphics. This paper investigates shape modification of NURBS surfaces with geometric constraints, such as point, normal vector, and curve constraints. Two new methods are presented by constrained optimization and energy minimization. The former is based on minimizing changes in control net of surfaces, whereas the latter is based on strain energy minimization. By these two methods, we change control points and weights of an original surface, such that the modified surface satisfies the given constraints. Comparison results and practical examples are also given.

This paper presents a new approach for reconstructing solids with planar, quadric and toroidal surfaces from three-view engineering drawings. By applying geometric theory to 3-D reconstruction, our method is able to remove restrictions placed on the axes of curved surfaces by existing methods. The main feature of our algorithm is that it combines the geometric properties of conics with affine properties to recover a wider range of 3-D edges. First, the algorithm determines the type of each 3-D candidate conic edge based on its projections in three orthographic views, and then generates that candidate edge using the conjugate diameter method. This step produces a wire-frame model that contains all candidate vertices and candidate edges. Next, a maximum turning angle method is developed to find all the candidate faces in the wire-frame model. Finally, a general and efficient searching technique is proposed for finding valid solids from the candidate faces; the technique greatly reduces the searching space and the backtracking incidents. Several examples are given to demonstrate the efficiency and capability of the proposed algorithm.

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The medial axis transform (MAT) is an important shape representation for shape approximation, shape recognition, and shape retrieval. Despite years of research, there is still a lack of effective methods for efficient, robust and accurate computation of the MAT. We present an efficient method, called {\em Q-MAT}, that uses quadratic error minimization to compute a structurally simple, geometrically accurate, and compact representation of the MAT. We introduce a new error metric for approximation and a new quantitative characterization of unstable branches of the MAT, and integrate them in an extension of the well-known quadric error metric (QEM) framework for mesh decimation. Q-MAT is fast, removes insignificant unstable branches effectively, and produces a simple and accurate piecewise linear approximation of the MAT. The method is thoroughly validated and compared with existing methods for MAT computation.