Geometric design of functional surfaces

Abstract

The design of geometric shapes with physical constraints, such as hydrodynamic and aerodynamic constraints reflecting the functionality of the shapes, remains an important problem in cagd. This paper presents a method to design surfaces by incorporating physical constraints involving surface normal vectors. The design of functional surfaces is formulated as a linear problem using vector calculus. The final surface is an integral non-uniform B-spline surface, which is the solution of the linear equation system resulting from the least-squares fitting of the given grid points and the normal vectors at these points. The geometric design of propeller blade surfaces in conjunction with hydrodynamic analysis illustrates the method.