3D Studio Max-Plugin for visually smooth interpolation with triangular Bezier patches
	Description   Installation   Usage   Screenshots   Editorial   References

Description

This plugin is based upon the work of Bruce R. Piper.
The idea is to interpolate a given triangular mesh smoothly using triangular Bézier patches. To reach our goal we have to perform following steps:

• Estimate the tangent planes in the vertices
• For each patch use these planes to calculate parametric continuous (C1) Bézier boundary curves (of degree 3)
• Now estimate the missing middle point of the cubic Bézier patch (9 parameter interpolant)
• Subdivide each patch into 3 subpatches
• Degree elevation to degree 4
• Take a look at the boundary curves the new patches have in common with the old patches and make the neighbour patches geometric countinuous (G1 = visually smooth)
• Take a look at the remaining boundary curves and make the neighbours parametric continuous (C1)

Installation

Step 1: Download plugin for 3D Studio Max R4.2

Step 2: Copy it into your plugin directory

Step 3: Restart 3D Studio Max R4.2

Usage

Select the modifier "smoother" in the modifiers menu. Now you have 3 parameters: Resolution: select how often the Bézier patches should be evaluated Slope: alter the slope of the Bézier bundary curves Weighted normals: select if the normals should be weighted by the size of the triangles

Screenshots

Different resolutions
Source bunny	Evaluation of the Bézier patches at only some points.	Evaluation of the Bézier patches at more points.
Effect of different slope values

Editorial

Authors:	Jens Thiele, Jasmina Orman, Eugen Resch
Tutoren:	Bernd Eberhard , Olaf Etzmuß , Markus Wacker

References

Bruce R. Piper, Visually Smooth Interpolation with Triangular Bézier Patches

Last modified: Thu Nov 15 18:13:41 MET 2001 Jens Thiele Jasmina Orman Eugen Resch