Quasi-developable Surface Construction Based on Boundary Curve and Its Application in ShipHull Design

A novel method is proposed for quasi-developable surface construction between two boundary curves. Different from existing methods which construct a developable surface by connecting finite sampling points of two curves, the present method allows continuous mapping between boundary curves, which enhances the ability of searching for better developable surface. This method directly generates a developable B-spline surface whose boundaries interpolate target profile curves, as a contrast to existing approaches which construct smooth developable surfaces by joining surface patches. Moreover, with the present method, it is easy to control the overall smoothness of surface and avoid emergence of regression curves inside concerned surface region. The method is applied to several ship hull data and quasi-developable surfaces which meet manufacturing requirements are successfully generated.