Manipulating surfaces differentially

We want to create interactive surface design systems which provide intuitive interfaces to parametric surface representations. In this paper, we show how the technique of Differential Manipulation can be used in constructing such interfaces. It allows surface manipulation issues to be treated separately from surface representation issues. Arbitrary differentiable functions of representation parameters can be used to control the surface. Constraint and optimization techniques can be used to enhance interaction and control many surface degrees of freedom at once. We provide examples of the technique’s use in our interactive surface modeling program. electronicmail: [email protected] electronicmail: [email protected] This research was sponsored in part by Apple Computer, Siemens Corporation and Silicon Graphics Incorporated. The second author is supported in part by a fellowship from the Schlumberger Foundation, Inc. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpretedas representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of Schlumberger, Siemens, SGI or Apple.