G1 arc spline approximation of quadratic Bézier curves

Abstract

In describing the tool path for a certain CNC machine, it is often required to approximate Bézier curves by arc splines with the number of arc segments as small as possible. We give a new method for approximating quadratic Bézier curves by G 1 arc splines with smaller number of arc segments than the biarc method. Numerical results are given to illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm for the previously used examples of quadratic Bézier curves.