Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and surfaces. It offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analytic and modeled shapes. It is a type of curve modeling, as opposed to polygonal modeling or digital sculpting. NURBS curves are commonly used in computer-aided design (CAD), manufacturing (CAM), and engineering (CAE). They are part of numerous industry-wide standards, such as IGES, STEP, ACIS, and PHIGS. Tools for creating and editing NURBS surfaces are found in various 3D graphics and animation software packages.
The light field is a vector function that describes the amount of light flowing in every direction through every point in space. The space of all possible light rays is given by the five-dimensional plenoptic function, and the magnitude of each ray is given by the radiance. Michael Faraday was the first to propose that light should be interpreted as a field, much like the magnetic fields on which he had been working for several years. The phrase light field was coined by Andrey Gershun in a classic paper on the radiometric properties of light in three-dimensional space (1936).
In computer graphics, metaballs are organic-looking n-dimensional isosurfaces, characterised by their ability to meld together when in close proximity to create single, contiguous objects. This "blobby" appearance makes them versatile tools, often used to model organic objects and also to create base meshes for sculpting. The technique for rendering metaballs was invented by Jim Blinn in the early 1980s to model atom interactions for Carl Sagan's 1980 TV series Cosmos. It is also referred to colloquially as the "jelly effect" in the motion and UX design community, commonly appearing in UI elements such as navigations and buttons. Metaball behavior corresponds to mitosis in cell biology, where chromosomes generate identical copies of itself through cell division.
In the field of 3D computer graphics, a subdivision surface is a curved surface represented by the specification of a coarser polygonal mesh and produced by a recursive algorithmic method. The curved surface, the underlying inner mesh, can be calculated from the coarse mesh, known as the control cage or outer mesh, as the functional limit of an iterative process of subdividing each polygonal face into smaller faces that better approximate the final underlying curved surface. Less commonly, a simple algorithm is used to add geometry to a mesh by subdividing the faces into smaller ones without changing the overall shape or volume.
Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) is a computational method used for simulating the mechanics of continuum media, such as solid mechanics and fluid flows. It was developed by Gingold and Monaghan and Lucy in 1977, initially for astrophysical problems. It has been used in many fields of research, including astrophysics, ballistics, volcanology, and oceanography. It is a meshfree Lagrangian method, and the resolution of the method can easily be adjusted with respect to variables such as density.
Shape optimization is part of the field of optimal control theory. The typical problem is to find the shape which is optimal in that it minimizes a certain cost functional while satisfying given constraints. In many cases, the functional being solved depends on the solution of a given partial differential equation defined on the variable domain.
The Catmull–Clark algorithm is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to create curved surfaces by using subdivision surface modeling. It was devised by Edwin Catmull and Jim Clark in 1978 as a generalization of bi-cubic uniform B-spline surfaces to arbitrary topology.
The bidirectional reflectance distribution function is a function of four real variables that defines how light is reflected at an opaque surface. It is employed in the optics of real-world light, in computer graphics algorithms, and in computer vision algorithms. The function takes an incoming light direction, , and outgoing direction, , and returns the ratio of reflected radiance exiting along to the irradiance incident on the surface from direction . Each direction is itself parameterized by azimuth angle and zenith angle , therefore the BRDF as a whole is a function of 4 variables. The BRDF has units sr−1, with steradians (sr) being a unit of solid angle.
Geometry processing, or mesh processing, is an area of research that uses concepts from applied mathematics, computer science and engineering to design efficient algorithms for the acquisition, reconstruction, analysis, manipulation, simulation and transmission of complex 3D models. As the name implies, many of the concepts, data structures, and algorithms are directly analogous to signal processing and image processing. For example, where image smoothing might convolve an intensity signal with a blur kernel formed using the Laplace operator, geometric smoothing might be achieved by convolving a surface geometry with a blur kernel formed using the Laplace-Beltrami operator.
In electrical engineering and computer science, Lloyd's algorithm, also known as Voronoi iteration or relaxation, is an algorithm named after Stuart P. Lloyd for finding evenly spaced sets of points in subsets of Euclidean spaces and partitions of these subsets into well-shaped and uniformly sized convex cells. Like the closely related k-means clustering algorithm, it repeatedly finds the centroid of each set in the partition and then re-partitions the input according to which of these centroids is closest. In this setting, the mean operation is an integral over a region of space, and the nearest centroid operation results in Voronoi diagrams.
Mesh generation is the practice of creating a mesh, a subdivision of a continuous geometric space into discrete geometric and topological cells. Often these cells form a simplicial complex. Usually the cells partition the geometric input domain. Mesh cells are used as discrete local approximations of the larger domain. Meshes are created by computer algorithms, often with human guidance through a GUI, depending on the complexity of the domain and the type of mesh desired. The goal is to create a mesh that accurately captures the input domain geometry, with high-quality (well-shaped) cells, and without so many cells as to make subsequent calculations intractable. The mesh should also be fine in areas that are important for the subsequent calculations.
In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. The caustic is a curve or surface to which each of the light rays is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. Therefore, in the photo to the right, caustics can be seen as patches of light or their bright edges. These shapes often have cusp singularities.
PDE surfaces are used in geometric modelling and computer graphics for creating smooth surfaces conforming to a given boundary configuration. PDE surfaces use partial differential equations to generate a surface which usually satisfy a mathematical boundary value problem.
Thin plate splines (TPS) are a spline-based technique for data interpolation and smoothing. They were introduced to geometric design by Duchon. They are an important special case of a polyharmonic spline. Robust Point Matching (RPM) is a common extension and shortly known as the TPS-RPM algorithm.
Function Representation is used in solid modeling, volume modeling and computer graphics. FRep was introduced in "Function representation in geometric modeling: concepts, implementation and applications" as a uniform representation of multidimensional geometric objects (shapes). An object as a point set in multidimensional space is defined by a single continuous real-valued function of point coordinates which is evaluated at the given point by a procedure traversing a tree structure with primitives in the leaves and operations in the nodes of the tree. The points with belong to the object, and the points with are outside of the object. The point set with is called an isosurface.
In computer vision and computer graphics, 3D reconstruction is the process of capturing the shape and appearance of real objects. This process can be accomplished either by active or passive methods. If the model is allowed to change its shape in time, this is referred to as non-rigid or spatio-temporal reconstruction.
The finite element method (FEM) is a widely used method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow, mass transport, and electromagnetic potential. The FEM is a general numerical method for solving partial differential equations in two or three space variables. To solve a problem, the FEM subdivides a large system into smaller, simpler parts that are called finite elements. This is achieved by a particular space discretization in the space dimensions, which is implemented by the construction of a mesh of the object: the numerical domain for the solution, which has a finite number of points. The finite element method formulation of a boundary value problem finally results in a system of algebraic equations. The method approximates the unknown function over the domain. The simple equations that model these finite elements are then assembled into a larger system of equations that models the entire problem. The FEM then uses variational methods from the calculus of variations to approximate a solution by minimizing an associated error function.
In computer graphics, a hierarchical RBF is an interpolation method based on Radial basis functions (RBF). Hierarchical RBF interpolation has applications in the construction of shape models in 3D computer graphics, treatment of results from a 3D scanner, terrain reconstruction, and others.
The stretched grid method (SGM) is a numerical technique for finding approximate solutions of various mathematical and engineering problems that can be related to an elastic grid behavior. In particular, meteorologists use the stretched grid method for weather prediction and engineers use the stretched grid method to design tents and other tensile structures.
T-spline is a mathematical model for defining freeform surfaces in computer graphics. A T-spline surface is a type of surface defined by a network of control points where a row of control points is allowed to terminate without traversing the entire surface. The control net at a terminated row resembles the letter "T". Modeling surfaces with T-splines can reduce the number of control points in comparison to NURBS surfaces and make pieces easier to merge, but increases the book-keeping effort to keep track of the irregular connectivity. T-splines can be converted into NURBS surfaces, by knot insertion, and NURBS can be represented as T-splines without T's or by removing knots. T-splines can therefore, in theory, do everything that NURBS can do. In practice, enormous amount of programming was required to make NURBS work as well as they do, and creating the equivalent T-Spline functionality would require similar effort. To smoothly join at points where more than three surface pieces meet, T-splines have been combined with geometrically continuous constructions of degree 3 by 3 (bi-cubic) and, more recently, of degree 4 by 4 (bi-quartic).
