NURBS skinning surface for ship hull design based on new parameterization method

Surface reconstruction from sets of cross-sectional data is important in a variety of applications. The problem of generating a ship hull surface from non-regular cross-sectional curves is addressed. Generating non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) surfaces that represent cross-sectional curves is a challenge, since the number of control points is growing due to the non-avoidable process of having compatible cross-sectional curves. A new NURBS parameterization method that yields a minimum number of control points, and is adequate in generating a smooth and fair NURBS surface for ship hulls is proposed. This method allows for multiple knots and close domain knots. The results of applying different parameterization methods on the forward perpendicular (FP) region of a ship hull (organized in eight sections) shows that the proposed method reduces the number of control points and generates a smooth and fair NURBS surface, without sacrificing the original object shape of the FP region.