Computing planar sections of surfaces of revolution with revolute quadric decomposition

Computing the planar sections of objects is a fundamental operation in solid modeling. Subdivision method is commonly used for solving such intersection problems. In this paper, a novel revolute quadric decomposition is proposed for surfaces of revolution, which are subdivided into a set of coaxial revolute quadrics along the generatrix. This reduces the intersection problem of a plane and a surface of revolution to the intersection problem of a plane and a revolute quadric, which has robust, accurate and efficient geometric solution. Further, the intersection curves can be represented with a group of G(1) conic arcs. A new concept, valid intersection interval (VII), is introduced and a new technique, cylindrical bounding shell clipping, is proposed for efficient intersection detection for a plane and a surface of revolution. Finally, a tracing algorithm is presented for recognizing singular points and closed loops of intersection curves. Implemented examples show the robustness and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.