April 16, 2012
by jenseits
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Well jenseits I would have liked some more context on the curves so here we go: bézier curves are a way of mathematically describing curved lines. In 1962 the French engineer Pierre Bézier brings them to the attention of the world—he uses them to design automobile bodies for Renault. In the age of the computer we use them all the time, as they are the most popular way to describe curves in vector graphics. The prevalent type being cubic bézier curves, where each point on the curve has a corresponding control point that controls the direction of that section of the path.
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Check out ‘Bézier: prefab smoothness’, on page 12/13 of this 1989 booklet by LettError. The bézier is but one of the possible ways of describing a curve; it makes some shapes more easy to draw then others and as such has a marked influence on the kind of vector graphics we create.
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Well there are also Spiro curves, which are super fun to use and quite a nice change from the bézier. If you use Inkscape, they are available as a path effect. From what I understand, they’re unlikely to spread more widely though: the algorithm is patented (its inventor allows exceptions for Open Source software like Inkscape). Doug from the W3C posts about Catmull-Rom curves, never used these though.
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Heart Curve — from Wolfram MathWorld.
by ACJ - April 17, 2012 12 AM
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