Offsets of curves on rational B-spline surfaces

Abstract

The construction of offset curves is an important problem encountered often in design processes and in interrogation of geometric models. In this paper the problem of construction of offsets of curves lying on the same parametric surface is addressed. A novel algorithm is introduced, whose main feature is the use of geodesic paths to determine points of the offset. The offset is then approximated in the underlying surface parameter space by B-splines interpolating data points obtained by traveling a known distance along the geodesics departing from corresponding points of the progenitor in a direction perpendicular to the latter. A comprehensive error checking scheme has been devised allowing adaptive improvement of the approximation of the offset. The applicability of the algorithm is demonstrated by number of numerical examples.