Author
Xavier Tellier, Cyril Douthe, Olivier Baverel, Laurent Hauswirth
Abstract
Constant mean curvature surfaces (CMCs) have many interesting properties for use as a form for doubly curved structural envelopes. The discretization of these surfaces has been a focus of research amongst the discrete differential geometry community. Many of the proposed discretizations have remarkable properties for envelope rationalization purposes. However, little attention has been paid to generation methods intended for designers.
This paper proposes an extension to CMCs of the method developed by Bobenko, Hoffmann and Springborn (2006) to generate minimal S-isothermic nets. The method takes as input a CMC (smooth or finely triangulated), remeshes its Gauss map with quadrangular faces, and rebuilds a CMC mesh via a parallel transformation. The resulting mesh is S-CMC, a geometric structure discovered by Hoffmann (2010). This type of mesh have planar quads and offset properties, which are of particular interest in the fabrication of gridshells.
