Modeling generalized cylinders using direction map representation

Abstract

For generalized cylinders (GC) defined by contours of discrete curves, we propose two algorithms to generate GC surfaces (1) in polygonal meshes and (2) in developable surface patches of the cylindrical type. To solve the contour blending problem of generalized cylinder, the presented algorithms have adopted the algorithms and properties of linear interpolation by direction map (LIDM) that interpolate geometric shapes based on direction map merging and group scaling operations. Moreover, we propose an algorithm to develop generated developable surface patches on a plane. Proposed algorithms are fast to compute and easy to implement.