Curvature lines on bicubic Bezier patches

Murilo C. O. Camargos Filho1 and R. Antonio Goncalves2

1 Departamento de Ciencia da Computacao 2 Departamento de Ciencias Exatas

Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros UNIMONTES

Montes Claros, MG, Brazil
1 osoriocamargosfilho.1@osu.edu 2 gonan@uv.es

Let S be a regular surface immersed in R3 , locally given by x : U R2 R3 , U an open in

R2 , and let p S. We denote by Tp S the bi-dimensional vector tangent field on p S; if w is a
directive on the unit sphere on Tp S, S 1 (Tp S), then, w writes as w = axu + bxv for some a, b R.
Some curvature line at the chart x can be found by solving the differential equation (1) given by
the coefficients of the first and second fundamental forms [13].

(F g f G)b2 + (Eg eG)ab + (Ef eF )a2 = 0 (1)

where the triples (E, F , G) and (e, f , g) are the coefficients of the first and of the second funda-
mental form given by equations (2) and (3), respectively.

E = hxu , xu i F = hxu , xv i G = hxv , xv i (2)

e = hxuu , N i f = hxuv , N i g = hxvv , N i (3)
where N denotes the normal unitary field vectors to S throughout x, as appears in equation (4).
xu xv
N= (4)
kxu xv k

A Bezier patch can be written as a parametric surface x : [0, 1] [0, 1] R3 defined by

equation (5) [4].
m X
X n
x(u, v) = Bim (u)Bjn (v)Pij (5)
i=0 j=0

where Bin () represents the ith Bernstein polynomial of degree n, defined in equation (6), and Pij
is called the control points of the surface. Here, we will focus on bicubic Bezier patches, i.e., when
m = n = 3.
 
n n i
Bi (t) = t (1 t)ni (6)
i
In order to compute the coefficients of the first and second fundamental forms, we will write
the bicubic Bezier patch in matrix mode, shown in equation (7) [5].
T
1 1 0 0 0 P00 P01 P02 P03 1 3 3 1 1
u 3 3 0 0 0 3 6 3 v
P10 P11 P12 P13

x(u, v) =
u2 (7)
3 3 v 2

3 6 3 0 P20 P21 P22 P23 0 0
u3 1 3 3 1 P30 P31 P32 P33 0 0 0 1 v3

We know that the control points Pij are 3-dimensional points with coordinates x, y and z. In
this problem, we consider that these points are given, simplifying the matrix form in equation (7)
to the one shown in equation (8).
T
u u2 u3 M 1 v v2 v3
  
x(u, v) = 1 (8)
where M depends on the given control points. Now, we can compute the derivatives of x in u and
v as shown in equations (9) and (10).

1
 T
xu (u, v) = 0 1 2u 3u2 M 1 v v 2 v 3
  
(9)
T
xv (u, v) = 1 u u2 u3 M 0 1 2v 3v 2
  
(10)
Once the derivatives of the surface is found, computing the coefficients of the first fundamen-
tal form is an easy task to do. Computing the coefficients of the second fundamental form is
also computationally easy, because it depends on the second derivatives of this surface, given in
equations (11), (12) and (13).
T
xuu (u, v) = 0 0 2 6u M 1 v v 2 v 3
  
(11)
T
xuv (u, v) = 0 1 2u 3u2 M 0 1 2v 3v 2
  
(12)
T
xvv (u, v) = 1 u u2 u3 M 0 0 2 6v
  
(13)

We can take a practical case, let P be the control points of the bicubic Bezier patch x(u, v).
5 5

3 , 3 , 0
1, 31 , 34
1, 31 , 34
5 5




3 , 3 , 0

1 , 1, 4 95 , 95 , 0
5 5 1 4
P = 3 3
9, 9, 0 3 , 1, 3

1 4 5 5 5 5 1 4


, 1, 9, 9, 0
9, 9, 0
3 , 1, 3


3 3

35 , 53 , 0 1, 31 , 43 1, 31 , 34 5 5
3 3, , 0
This surface is well known in the literature as the Ennepers surface [6] and its shape is given in
Figure 1. The matrix M for each coordinate x, y and z is given in equation (14) and the parametric
form of the surface is given in equation (15).

1 0 0 0 P00 P01 P02 P03 1 3 3 1
3 3 0 0 P10 P11 P12 P13 0 3 6 3

M = 3 6 3 0 P20 P21 P22 P23 0 0 (14)
3 3
1 3 3 1 P30 P31 P32 P33 0 0 0 1
2 2
T
(2v1)(12u 12u4v +4v+5)
2
3 2
x(u, v) = (2u1)(4u +4u+12v 12v+5) (15)

3
4u2 + 4u + 4v 2 4v
To compute the coefficients of the first fundamental form, we need the derivative of x in both u
and v directions. For this example, the equation (16) shows the first derivatives and the coefficients
are shown in equation (17). We used MATLAB R
to make all computations.

8(u2 + u + v 2 v) + 2 4(1 2u)

 x   
xu xyu xzu 4(2u 1)(2v 1)
= (16)
xxv xyv xzv 8(u2 u v 2 + v) + 2 4(2u 1)(2v 1) 4(2v 1)
4(4u2 4u + 4v 2 4v + 3)2

E hxu , xu i
F = hxu , xv i = 0 (17)
G hxv , xv i 4(4u2 4u + 4v 2 4v + 3)2
The second derivatives of the application x are given by equation (18) and the normal vector
field by equation (19), consequently, the coefficient of the second fundamental form are shown in
equation (20).
x
xuu xyuu xzuu 16v 8 8 16u 8
xxuv xyuv xzuv = 16u 8 16v 8 0 (18)
xxvv xyvv xzvv 8 16v 16u 8 8
2(2v1)
T
4u2 4u+4v 2 4v+3
2(2u1)
N = 4u2 4u+4v (19)

2 4v+3
4u2 4u+4v 2 4v+1
4u2 4u+4v 2 4v+3

2
      
e f g = hxuu , N i hxuv , N i hxvv , N i = 8 0 8 (20)
Now, let (t) = x(u(t), v(t)) be a regular curve on the regular surface x parametrized by t and
w = (t) = u xu + v xv . Applying the computed coefficients in equation (1) shows that we will
have curvature lines when u = 0 or v = 0.

64(4u2 4u + 4v 2 4v + 3)2 au v = 0 (21)

Therefore, when u = 0, we have that u(t) is a constant and the curvature line if the curve
shown in equation (22). Similarly, the curvature line when v = 0 is shown in equation (23).
T
(2v(t)1)(12u20 12u0 4v(t)2 +4v(t)+5)

(2u0 1)(4u2 +4u03+12v(t)2 12v(t)+5)
1 (t) = 0 (22)
3
4u20 + 4u0 + 4v(t)2 4v(t)
T
(2v0 1)(12u(t)2 12u(t)4v02 +4v0 +5)

3
(2u(t)1)(4u(t)2 +4u(t)+12v 2
2 (t) = 0 12v0 +5) (23)


3
4u(t)2 + 4u(t) + 4v02 4v0
Given a point p = (u0 , v0 ) = (0.1, 0.8) [0, 1] [0, 1] R2 and its map to the surface
q = x(p) (0.91, 0.92, 0.28). The curvature line passing through this point is shown in Figure 2.

x(u,v)
1 (t)
1 (t)
2
1
q=x(p)

0.5
0.5

0
z

0
z

-0.5
-0.5

-1
-1 2
2
1 2
1 2 1
0
0 1 0
0 -1
-1
-1
-1 y -2 -2 x
y -2 -2 x

Figure 2: A piece of the Ennepers surface with

Figure 1: A piece of the Ennepers surface.
the two curvature lines at point q = x(p).

References

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faces. Instituto de Matematica Pura e Aplicada, 1991. ISBN 8524400579.
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Press, Inc., Boca Raton, FL, USA, 1st edition, 1996. ISBN 0849371643.
[4] Juan Monterde. The plateau-bezier problem. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages
262273. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2003.
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Science, pages 7281. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2002.