CS 285: SOLID MODELING

Lecture #26 -- We, April 26, 2006.

Preparation

Read the Surface Evolver paper (You may skip Sections: 3.4, 3.5, 4.2, 4.8, 5.4, 5.5, 6.2, 6.7, 9, 10.)
and browse the online information about the Surface Evolver

Procedural Surface Definition and Optimization

1. What is the basic representation of a surface in the Evolver ?
2. What kind of constraints can be specified on these surfaces ?
3. What kind of energies can be specified to guide the surface optimization ?
4. For soap films suspended in wire frames, the mean curvature has to be minimized;
   -- how is this step discretized to work with the above representation ?
5. For closed soap bubles the mean curvature is (obviously) not zero,
   -- what does it depend on ?
6. What is a Willmore surface ?
7. What is the role of a "gap energy" ?
8. By how much does a vertex move in each iteration ?
9. What processes and steps are there to make the surface smooth, "well-behaved" ?
10. Mention one application of the Evolver that led to new insights.

Homework Assignments:

Continue to work on your projects.

Project Schedule

Prepare your 15/20-minute oral presentations:

• Start with a brief reminder of the goal of the project and of the things you promised to deliver.
• Show the progress you have made towards that goal, and what remains to be completed.
• Illustrate something of general importance that you have learned, or a difficulty that you had to overcome.
• Show off the results that you are most proud of !
• (Check out these specs and hints ...)