On a special case of the intersection of quadric and cubic surfaces

Abstract

The intersection curve between two surfaces in three-dimensional real projective space R P 3 is important in the study of computer graphics and solid modelling. However, much of the past work has been directed towards the intersection of two quadric surfaces. In this paper we study the intersection curve between a quadric and a cubic surface and its projection onto the plane at infinity. Formulas for the plane and space curves are given for the intersection of a quadric and a cubic surface. A family of cubic surfaces that give the same space curve when we intersect them with a quadric surface is found. By generalizing the methods in Wang et al. (2002) [6] that are used to parametrize the space curve between two quadric surfaces, we give a parametrization for the intersection curve between a quadric and a cubic surface when the intersection has a singularity of order 3.