Mathematical Methods for Curves and Surfaces

Abstract

We will deal with the translation surfaces which are the shapes generated by translating one curve along another one. We focus on the geometry of translation surfaces generated by two algebraic curves in space and study their properties, especially those useful for geometric modelling purposes. It is a classical result that each minimal surface may be obtained as a translation surface generated by an isotropic curve and its complex conjugate. Thus, we can study the minimal surfaces as special instances of translation surfaces. All the results about translation surfaces will be directly applied also to minimal surfaces. Finally, we present a construction of rational isotropic curves with a prescribed tangent field which leads to the description of all rational minimal surfaces. A close relation to surfaces with Pythagorean normals will be also discussed.