Planar Typical Bézier Curves Made Simple

Recently, He et al. derived several remarkable properties of the so-called typical Bézier curves, a subset of constrained Bézier curves introduced by Mineur et al. In particular, He et al. proved that such curves display at most one curvature extremum, give an explicit formula of the parameter at the extremum, and show that subdividing a curve at this point furnishes two new typical curves. We recall that typical curves amount to segments of a special family of sinusoidal spirals, curves already studied by Maclaurin in the early 18th century and whose properties are well-known. These sinusoidal spirals display only one curvature extremum (i.e., vertex), whose parameter is simply that corresponding to the axis of symmetry. Subdividing a segment at an arbitrary point, not necessarily the vertex, always yields two segments of the same spiral, hence two typical curves.

Planar Typical Bézier Curves with a Single Curvature Extremum

This paper focuses on planar typical Bézier curves with a single curvature extremum, which is a supplement of typical curves with monotonic curvature by Y. Mineur et al. We have proven that the typical curve has at most one curvature extremum and given a fast calculation formula of the parameter at the curvature extremum. This will allow designers to execute a subdivision at the curvature extremum to obtain two pieces of typical curves with monotonic curvature. In addition, we put forward a sufficient condition for typical curve solutions under arbitrary degrees for the G1 interpolation problem. Some numerical experiments are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.