What are Subdivision Surfaces?



The idea of subdivision surfaces was first introduced by Catmull & Clark and Doo & Sabin in 1978. Unlike traditional spline surfaces, subdivision surfaces are defined algorithmically. Recently there has been a lot of activity in the computer graphics research community and significant advances have been made in rendering, texture mapping, animation and compression of subdivision surfaces. They were also used in the production of Geri s Game and A Bug s Life. Geri s hands, head, jacket, and pants were each modeled using a single subdivision surface. The faces and the hands of Flick and Hopper were also modeled with subdivision surfaces. Momentum is building in the computer assisted geometric design (CAGD) to make subdivision surfaces one of the modeling primitives.