Title: An Algorithm for Computing Geodesic Curve Based on Digital Experiment of Point Clouds
Abstract: A geodesic path can be computed when the locations of two points on surface are fixed. It is an attractive research subject to make this method more simple, intuitive, and universal. First, the surface is discretized into a point cloud, and the line connecting the two known points is represented by points too. According to the sufficient conditions of geodesic, the principal normal vector of the geodesic at every point coincides with the normal vector of surface at that point, and the points on the line are projected onto the surface to form the curve C1 which is composed of discrete points. The geodesic path is also the shortest one between the two known points on the surface. Connect the two known points to a point picked on curve C1 into two lines respectively, and then the two lines are orthographically projected on the surface into two curves. For every point on curve C1, two projected curves can be obtained by the method above. If the sum of the lengths of the two projected curves is minimal, this point is supposed on the geodesic. Those points are computed by this method (called OPA), after, they are smoothly connected into a curve, which is the geodesic. According the analysis above, an algorithm for computing points on the geodesic is designed. The correctness of the geodesic computed by this method can be verified by the graphical of Frenet frame. The advantages of the point clouds method of digital experiment proposed in this paper are as follows: not being limited by surface shape, intuitive, precision can be controlled, stable and reliable.
Publication Year: 2018
Publication Date: 2018-07-07
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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