Distortion minimal morphing: the theory for stretching (Q1011126)

The authors develop a mathematical approach to the study of distortion minimal morphings over a continuous family of states in the context of morphs between \(n\)-dimensional oriented compact connected smooth manifolds without boundary embedded in \(\mathbb R^{n+1}.\) They also suppose that all the intermediate states are equipped with the volume forms induced by the standard volume form on \(\mathbb R^{n+1}.\) By definition, a morph is a transformation between two shapes through a set of intermediate shapes [cf. \textit{G. Wolberg}, ``Image morphing: a survey'', The Visual Computer 14, No.~8/9, 360--372 (1998)], while a minimal morph [cf. \textit{G. Yu, N. M. Patrikalakis} and \textit{T. Maekawa}, ``Optimal development of doubly curved surfaces'', Comput. Aided Geom. Des. 17, No.~6, 545--577 (2000; Zbl 0945.68175)] is such a transformation that minimizes distortion; the distortion involves bending and stretching. The main result is the proof of the existence of a distortion minimal morph (with respect to stretching) between every pair of isotopic submanifolds in \(\mathbb R^{n+1}.\) The proof is based on the analysis of the natural cost functional (for stretching) that measures the total relative change of volume with respect to a family of diffeomorphisms defining the morph. In particular, it turns out that the extremals of this functional are global minimizers.