Toric degenerations of Bezier patches

06/25/2010

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by   Luis David Garcia-Puente, et al.

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The control polygon of a Bezier curve is well-defined and has geometric significance---there is a sequence of weights under which the limiting position of the curve is the control polygon. For a Bezier surface patch, there are many possible polyhedral control structures, and none are canonical. We propose a not necessarily polyhedral control structure for surface patches, regular control surfaces, which are certain C^0 spline surfaces. While not unique, regular control surfaces are exactly the possible limiting positions of a Bezier patch when the weights are allowed to vary.