Construction of planar quintic Pythagorean-hodograph curves by control-polygon constraints (Q6098159)

Pythagorean-hodograph curves (PH curves for short) are polynomial or rational curves with a piecewise rational unit tangent field -- a property that is considered advantageous for some applications. While convenient algorithms for the construction of PH curves have been developed during the past decades, their inherently non-linear character prevents straightforward adoption of free-form curve design techniques. This paper explores a possibility to overcome this shortcoming in the case of planar quintic PH curves. Building on well known conditions for a planar quintic Bézier curve to enjoy the PH property [\textit{R. T. Farouki}, Comput. Aided Geom. Des. 11, No. 4, 363--390 (1994; Zbl 0806.65005)] the authors demonstrate that any two legs of the control polygon determine the remaining three legs. Depending on the chosen initial leg pair, the computation requires solving a quadratic or quartic equation over the complex numbers. Curve design techniques based on the selection of two legs are exemplified at hand of several examples. While the presented approach seems practical in the considered case of planar quintic PH curves, generalizations to higher degrees or to space curves seem difficult.