Quasinonparametric surfaces (Q1894416)

The author describes the use of ``quasinonparametric'' surfaces for a variety of constitutions commonly used in constructive solid geometry and solid modelling. He uses the term ``quasi-nonparametric'' surface for parametric surfaces whose coordinate functions \(x(u,v)\), \(y(u,v)\), and \(z(u,v)\) are not all complicated splines; e.g., a surface \((x,y, f(x,y) = z)\) is considered a ``quasinonparametric'' surface. It is pointed out that surfaces of the kind (1) \(0 \leq x \leq 1\), (2) \(0 \leq y \leq 1\), (3) \(f_1(x,y) \leq z \leq f_2(x,y)\), are useful for many practical applications. The author proposes to represent the graphs of \(f_1\) and \(f_2\) in nonparametric Bézier form. He describes various techniques how the class of shapes defined by (1), (2), and (3) can be extended further by allowing more general boundary curves then (1) or (2) and by using cylindrical and polar coordinate systems. The methods presented are quite powerful and allow the representation of a wide class of 3D solids. Several examples are provided.