Multiresolution editing for B-spline curves and surfaces

Since 1980 surface modeling has been used in industrial design, CAD and entertainment to create and represent complex forms. Even with this comparatively long history of development, challenges remain in free-form surface modeling. One such challenge is building surface creation and editing techniques that effectively balance the need for local control with the need to control the overall global shape, or sweep of the surface. This dissertation presents a multiresolution approach to the creation of surfaces that allows a designer to more easily manage this balance between local and global control. The techniques presented in this dissertation utilize a wavelet decomposition of B-spline curves and surfaces to allow a designer to easily develop the basic shape using lower level representations, and then seamlessly switch to higher level representations to achieve fine control over local features. The algorithms described in the dissertation are implemented in an interactive software system that is used to demonstrate their effectiveness in comparison to existing methods.