ABSTRACT

While faceted models are in widespread use, for example in games, other applications, such as computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacture (CAM), and higher-end animation require more exact model representations. A de facto standard in these areas are spline models, which use higher-degree, rational, parametric surfaces to represent shape. This chapter will provide some introduction to spline basics and show how to apply this theory for the demanding computational task of haptic rendering. A representative model is shown in Figure 17.1.