Freeform surface flattening based on fitting a woven mesh model

This paper presents a robust and efficient surface flattening approach based on fitting a woven-like mesh model on a 3D freeform surface. The fitting algorithm is based on tendon node mapping (TNM) and diagonal node mapping (DNM), where TNM determines the position of a new node on the surface along the warp or weft direction and DNM locates a node along the diagonal direction. During the 3D fitting process, strain energy of the woven model is released by a diffusion process that minimizes the deformation between the resultant 2D pattern and the given surface. Nodes mapping and movement in the proposed approach are based on the discrete geodesic curve generation algorithm, so no parametric surface or pre-parameterization is required. After fitting the woven model onto the given surface, a continuous planar coordinate mapping is established between the 3D surface and its counterpart in the plane, based on the idea of geodesic interpolation of the mappings of the nodes in the woven model. The proposed approach accommodates surfaces with darts, which are commonly utilized in clothing industry to reduce the stretch of surface forming and flattening. Both isotropic and anisotropic materials are supported. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.