Abstract

In order to model blending surfaces with curvature continuity, in this paper we apply sixth order partial differential equations (PDEs), which are solved with a composite power series based method. The proposed composite power series based approach meets boundary conditions exactly, minimises the errors of the PDEs, and creates almost as accurate blending surfaces as those from the closed form solution that is the most accurate but achievable only for some simple blending problems. Since only a few unknown constants are involved, the proposed method is comparable with the closed form solution in terms of computational efficiency. Moreover, it can be used to construct 3- or 4-sided patches through the satisfaction of continuities along all edges of the patches. Therefore, the developed method is simpler and more efficient than numerical methods, more powerful than the analytical methods, and can be implemented into an effective tool for the generation and manipulation of complex free-form surfaces.