Surfaces In An Object-Oriented Geometric Framework

To use the advantages of different surface representations, such as tensor-product surfaces, surfaces over triangular regions, implicitly defined surfaces, etc., it is necessary to integrate these surface types with a large variety of algorithms into one programming environment. Inheritance and polymorphism of object-oriented languages offer the opportunity to realize an implementation, which is not bound to a certain representation of the surface. The most reasonable way to benefit from such an object-oriented approach is to use existing algorithms and if necessary to develop new algorithms that are based on the functionality provided by as many surface representations as possible. An object-oriented design for surfaces is presented and the advantages of such a design are illustrated by examples.