Computing the minimum distance between a point and a NURBS curve

A new method is presented for computing the minimum distance between a point and a NURBS curve. It utilizes a circular clipping technique to eliminate the curve parts outside a circle with the test point as its center point. The radius of the elimination circle becomes smaller and smaller during the subdivision process. A simple condition for terminating the subdivision process is provided, which leads to very few subdivision steps in the new method. Examples are shown to illustrate the efficiency and robustness of