Solid Modeling Solutions: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:43, 26 December 2010

Revision as of 23:14, 26 December 2010

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NURBS ([[non-uniform rational B-spline]]), 3D geometry, and [[solid modeling]] technology emerged in the 1980s and 1990s into a commercial implementation known as SMLib (for solid modeling library). This article will provide the background and history of this implementation into a commercial product line from Solid Modeling Solutions (SMS). SMS is an independent supplier of source code for a suite of NURBS-based geometry libraries, SMLib, TSNLib, GSNLib, NLib, SDLib, VSLib, and PolyMLib, that encompass definition and manipulation of NURBS curves and surfaces with the latest fully functional non-manifold topology.

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discovered that the people with the best understanding of the presentation were the SDRC representatives. Evidently SDRC was also active in defining a single representation for the standard CAD curves and was working on a similar definition.

So that’s how NURBS started at Boeing. Boehm’s B-spline refinement paper from CAD ’80 was of primary importance. It enabled the staff to understand non-uniform splines and to appreciate the geometrical nature of the definition so as to use B-splines in solving engineering problems. The first use of the geometrical nature of B-splines was in the curve/curve intersection. The Bezier subdivision process was utilized, and a second use was our{{whoWho|date=December 2010}} curve offset algorithm, which was based on a polygon offset process that was eventually communicated to and used by SDRC and explained by Tiller and Hanson in their offset paper of 1984. The staff also developed an internal NURBS class taught to about 75 Boeing engineers. The class covered Bezier curves, Bezier to B-spline and surfaces. The first public presentation of our NURBS work was at a Seattle CASA/SME seminar in March 1982. The staff had progressed quite far by then. They could take a rather simple NURBS surface definition of an aircraft and slice it with a plane surface to generate an interesting outline of some of the wing, body and engines.

For the record, by late 1980, the TIGER Geometry Development Group consisted of Robert Blomgren, Richard Fuhr, George Graf, Peter Kochevar, Eugene Lee, Miriam Lucian and Richard Rice. Robert Blomgren was “lead engineer”.

Robert M. Blomgren subsequently formed Applied Geometry in 1984 to commercialize the technology, and Applied Geometry was subsequently purchased by [[Alias Systems Corporation]]/[[Silicon Graphics]]. Solid Modeling Solutions (SMS) was formed in early 1998 by Robert Blomgren and Jim Presti. In late 2001, Nlib was purchased from GeomWare, and the alliance with IntegrityWare was terminated in 2004. Enhancements and major new features are added twice-yearly.