MOTIVATING  GEOMETRY THROUGH
COMPUTATION  AND  VISUALIZATION

funded by NSF-CCLI grant DUE-0126687

Principal Investigator
David L. Finn
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Finn's Page | CCLI Info | Applets | Materials | Course Notes | Publications
Creating Piecewise Continuous Bezier Curves (G2 Bezier splines)

DIRECTIONS:   In this applet, you create composite Bezier curves. To create the first segment, press new curve and then place control points as in the previous applets. To start a new segment, press new curve. This starts a new segment using the last control point of the previous segment as the starting point. However, we can now control the position of the intermediate control points by defining ratios for each spline control point .

EXERCISES to Explore with This Applet

  1. Create a curve with two cubic arcs, play with changing the ratios. What happens when the ratio approaches zero or one? Look at the curvature?
  2. Repeat the above exercise, with a curve with three cubic arcs.
  3. Can you arrange the ratios easily to create an approximate arc of circle, constant curvature?