A new offset approach for curves on triangle mesh surfaces

Offset for curves on surfaces is an essential tool in generating the composite ply shapes for the design of laminated composite parts. For the triangle mesh is widely used in industry and computer graphics systems, present work is research on the offset approach for curves on triangle mesh surface (COT). Firstly, each edge in the curve is subdivided into sub-edges utilizing the characteristics of the triangle mesh. Secondly, offset points for the end points of the sub-edges are computed. At the same time, the local self-intersections are detected and the local invalid-loops are removed, and the intermediate offset curve is built. Finally, the offset curve is obtained by deleting global self-intersections. In the paper, the properties of curves, the triangle meshes and relationship between them are explored in detail. In the end, test examples are given and experiments show that the proposed approach is quite accurate and robust within specified tolerance.