A novel algorithm on computing intersections of two surfaces of revolution based on spherical decomposition

A novel algorithm for computing RSIC intersection curves of two surfaces of revolution is presented; it subdivides a surface of revolution into a collection of coaxial spherical strips, by subdividing its generatrix into a collection of C/sup 0/ and C/sup 1/ coaxial circular arcs correspondingly. So the intersection problem of two surfaces of revolution is reduced to an intersection problem of two spherical stripes, and RSIC is approximated as a piecewise C/sup 0/ and C/sup 1/ circular, which is quite convenient for some CAD applications. Cylindrical bounding shell is used for computing valid intersection interval VII to avoid the unnecessary intersection computation efficiently. Finally, we give a simple algorithm of tracing RSIC for classification and a unified rational Bezier representation to RSIC.