G1 continuity of four pieces of developable surfaces with Bezier boundaries

For potential applications in geometric design and manufacturing of material, the G(1) connection of many pieces of developable surfaces is an important issue. In this paper, by using de Casteljau algorithm we study the G(1) connection of four pieces of developable surfaces with Bezier boundary curves. We convert these surfaces to tensor form firstly, then characterize the constrains of the control points of the surfaces need to satisfy when G(1) connecting them. This method can also be extended to the case when the developable surfaces possess Bezier boundary curves with different degrees. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.