[cairo] Rendering B-Splines with Cairo

[Gerald Hansford]

Hi Bill - thanks for the reply. You're right - perhaps I can derive the math
from that fact. My B-Spline code implements the "openness" via the knot
vector, but I believe you can achieve the same result by using a periodic
spline that repeats the control points instead. I'll give it a shot.


On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:30 PM, Bill Spitzak <spitzak at thefoundry.co.uk>wrote:

> Aren't the end points as though there are 2 b-spline control points at that
> location? Ie pretend there is one more point before and after the ends of
> your curve but equal to those points, then do your algorithm.
>
> Gerald Hansford wrote:
>
>> Hi - thanks as always to the tremendous team responsible for Cairo - it's
>> an excellent library.
>>
>> Does anyone have any experience rendering open, cubic uniform B-Splines
>> using Cairo? I know that it does not have explicit support for B-Splines,
>> but my understanding is that one can derive the series of Bézier splines
>> represented implicity in a B-Spline. In fact I have code that does this for
>> the open & periodic cases for quadratic b-splines, as well as the periodic
>> case for cubic B-Splines. For that, my code looks about like this:
>>
>> Vec2f q0, q1, q2, q3;
>> q0 = ( spline.getControlPoint( 0 ) + spline.getControlPoint( 1 ) * 4.0f +
>> spline.getControlPoint( 2 ) ) / 6.0f;
>> moveTo( q0 );
>> int lastPt = ( spline.isLoop() ) ? numPoints : numPoints - 3;
>> for( int i = 0; i < lastPt; ++i ) {
>>    Vec2f p1 = spline.getControlPoint( ( i + 1 ) % numPoints );
>>    Vec2f p2 = spline.getControlPoint( ( i + 2 ) % numPoints );
>>    Vec2f p3 = spline.getControlPoint( ( i + 3 ) % numPoints );
>>      q1 = p1 * ( 4.0f / 6.0f ) + p2 * ( 2.0f / 6.0f );
>>    q2 = p1 * ( 2.0f / 6.0f ) + p2 * ( 4.0f / 6.0f );
>>    q3 = p1 * ( 1.0f / 6.0f ) + p2 * ( 4.0f / 6.0f ) + p3 * ( 1.0f / 6.0f
>> );
>>    curveTo( q1, q2, q3 );
>> }
>>
>> The trouble comes when I try to address the open cubic case (where the
>> curve passes through the endpoints of the b-spline). All of the literature
>> on the topic which I can actually understand seems to be about the periodic
>> case.
>>
>> I know that in the open case, a b-spline with 4 control points exactly
>> maps to the bezier curve with the same control points. Also through
>> experimentation I can tell that the non-end segments of an open b-spline
>> with >= 6 points correspond to the periodic case. However I am still at a
>> loss as to how one would glue all of this information together, and I
>> haven't managed to get deep enough in the relevant math to follow
>> discussions of how knot insertion or blossoming helps me solve this problem.
>>
>> Any help from someone experienced in all of this would be *very* much
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks in advance...
>>
>>
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Bill Spitzak, Senior Software Engineer
> The Foundry, 618 Hampton Drive, Venice, CA, 90291, USA
> Tel: +1 310 399-4555 * Fax: +1 310 450-4516 * Web: www.thefoundry.co.uk
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>
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