Surface/surface intersection (Q1101179)

An adaptive surface/surface intersection algorithm is developed for rectangular parametric C 1 patches, each defined over a unit square. The algorithm is general (does not depend on particular surface type) and proceeds in two distinct stages: the first is to find one point on some intersection curve (using adaptive triangular mesh generation and piecewise linear approximation to the surface) and then follows this intersection curve by producting more points in a sequential fashion along the curve. The balance between robustness and efficiency of the method is controlled by a set of tolerances. Several examples illustrate the work of the algorithm presented. Some special cases and extensions of the method are considered.