degrees of curves

[David Richardson]

Hi everyone,

This question is more for Dr. Pollett, but I think you all may be
interested in the answer.

I've been working on the second homework a bit this weekend. The
instructions say we are not allowed to use the OpenGL evaluators to
draw any patch of degree higher-than three. However, from the rest of
the instructions, it doesn't sound like we would have to draw any
patches of degree other than three. The Catmull-Rom and Bessel
Overhauser splines just give us a piecewise cubic Bezier curve, right?

Am I missing something?

Thanks,

Dave R.

[Chris Pollett]

Hey Dave,

Eventually, you want to be output Bezier patches and OpenGL's
built-in functions are fully capable of drawing patches of degree
greater than three. These would not in general be the same surface
as if you split it into patches of degree three according to each piece
of the Catmull Rom or Bessel Overhauser spline. So I just wanted to
emphasize this by stating the problem as I did.

Chris