Conchoid surfaces of quadrics (Q2437324)

The authors study parametric representations of conchoids of quadric surfaces from a computational point of view. To address the problem, let \({\mathbf f}={\mathbf f}(u,v)\) be a parameterization of a real surface \(F\subseteq \mathbb R^3\). Then, its conchoid surfaces \(F_d\) with respect to the sphere with center the origin and radius \(d\) can be represented by \({\mathbf f}_d={\mathbf f}(u,v)\pm d\frac{{\mathbf f}(u,v)}{\|{\mathbf f}(u,v)\|}\). In particular, if the surface \(F\) has a so-called rational polar representation, i.e.~a representation of type \({\mathbf f}(u,v)=\rho(u,v){\mathbf k}(u,v)\), where the radius \(\rho(u,v)\) is a scalar rational function (rational radius function) and ``\({\mathbf k}(u,v)\) is a rational (improper) parameterization of the unit sphere \(S^2\)'', then the conchoid surfaces are represented by the rational parameterizations \({\mathbf f}_d=(\rho(u,v) \pm d){\mathbf k}(u,v)\). The aim of the authors is to extend some already known results, showing that a quadric surface \(F\) admits always a rational polar representation (Theorem 5), as announced in a remark of a previous paper on spheres [\textit{M. Peternell} et al., Comput. Aided Geom. Des. 30, No. 1, 35--44 (2013; Zbl 1255.65055)]. To this aim, the authors exploit the fact that surfaces having a rational polar parameterization correspond to those two-dimensional surfaces \(\Phi\) contained in a three-dimensional cone \(D\) in \(\mathbb R^4\) admitting a rational parameterization \(\phi(u,v)\) (Theorem 3). Further, they consider normal forms of quadric surfaces obtained by maps that preserve rational polar representations. First, they work on smooth quadrics, and then investigate the special cases of singular quadrics.