A method for deforming polygonal shapes into smooth spline surface models

The paper describes a new spline formulation that supports deformation of polygonal shapes into smooth spline surface models. Once a polygonal shape with underlying rectangular topology is specified by the user, it is deformed into a smooth surface that interpolates all the polygonal vertices. The user can then modify the default smooth surface by increasing or decreasing the amount of deformation, either globally or locally. This is accomplished by interactively controlling the shape parameters associated with the polygonal vertices. This modeling paradigm is conceptually simple, and allows C/sup 2/ continuous surfaces to be easily designed, even by a novice user.