The Video Geodesics and Waves

Konrad Polthier
Technische Universitat Berlin StraBe des 17.Juni 136 D-10623 Berlin, Germany +49.30.314.25782

Markus Schmies
Technische Universitat Berlin StraBe des 17.Juni 136 D-10623 Berlin, Germany +49.30.314.24608

polthier@math.tu-berlin.de Martin Steffens

SZM Studios Medienallee 7 D-85774 Untetfhring, Germany +49.89.9507.60

schmies@sfb288.math.tu.berlin.de Christian Teitzel

Universitt Erlangen Am Weichselgarten 9 D-91058 Erlangen, Germany +49.9131.85.29931

steffens@szm.de ABSTRACT
The video Geodesics and Waves introduces the concepts of straightest geodesics and geodesic flow on polyhedral surfaces. It is the third in a series of videos presenting research results from the area of mathematics and visualization produced at the department of Experimental Mathematics and Visualization at the Sonderforschungsbereich 288 on Differential Geometry and Quantum Physics at the Technical University of Berlin (see [1][2]).

teitzel@informatik.uni-erlangen.de

Keywords
Geodesics, Geodesic Flow, Isometric Texture Maps, Polyhedral Surfaces

1.

INTRODUCTION

Geodesic curves are a fundamental concept in geometry that generalize the idea of straight lines in the plain to curves in curved surfaces and arbitrary manifolds. Smooth geodesics are locally shortest curves and have vanishing geodesic curvature. On polyhedral surfaces these two properties are no longer equivalent. Therefore we introduce the notion of discrete geodesic curvature for curves and use it for the definition of straightest geodesics on polyhedral surfaces. In contrast to the widely used shortest geodesics, which fail to pass through positively curved surface vertices, straightest geodesics uniquely solve the initial value problem for geodesics. The unique solvability of the geodesic initial value problem by straightest geodesics directly leads to a definition of parallel translation of vectors along curves. An immediate application is the definition of a geodesic Runge-Kutta method for the integration of vector fields on polyhedral surfaces.

GEODESICS AND NUMERICS ON 2. POLYHEDRAL SURFACES

Geodesic curves are a fundamental concept in geodesy and mathematics to generalize the concept of a straight line to arbitrary curved surfaces and general manifolds. A simple example is the application to curves on round spheres: here the concept of geodesics leads to the definition of great arcs which are the shortest and straightest curves on earth. We define straightest curves on two-dimensional polyhedral surfaces, as opposed to the concepts of locally shortest and quasigeodesics. Such straightest geodesics uniquely solve the initial value problem on polyhedral surfaces, and therefore allow to move uniquely on a polyhedral surface in a given direction along a straightest geodesic until the boundary is reached, a property not available for locally shortest geodesics at surface vertices. An application of straightest geodesics is the definition of parallel translation of vectors and higher order numerical integration methods for tangential vector fields. This allows the extension of Runge Kutta methods to polyhedral surfaces.

411

A straightest geodesichas equal left and right curve angles81= 8, which are measured on the polyhedral surface. It is locally a straight line in the interior of a face, and across an edge it has equal angles on opposite sides. The definition of straightest geodesicson facesand through edgesis identical to the concept of shortest geodesicsexcept at vertices, where concepts differ. Our definition fits into the more general discussion of discrete geodesic curvature of curves on a polyhedral surface. This is discussedin detail in [3].

exponential map and play an important role in the study of surfacesin differential geometry.

BRANCHED TEXTURE MAPS AND 3. POINTWAVES ON SURFACES

The visualization of waves on arbitrary surfaces is a major task. Such waves traverse some regions of the surface a number of times and interfere with other parts of the wave. First, we use a locally isometric texture map technique for arbitrary surfaces consisting of planar triangles which allows surfacesto carry nondistorting texture maps. Secondly, we define an extension allowing multiple coverings of the surface with texture layers. This technique allows surfacesto carry textures where each point of the surface has an associated stack of texel values and the height of the stack may vary over the surface. We call this a branched texture map, similiar to branched covering maps in mathematics, but different from the local texture maps in animations systems.Each segmentof the wave is associatedto a certain texture layer which need not cover the whole surface and the layer is independent of a triangulation of the surface. When the numerics are done and the evolution of the wave is computed, we blend the texel values of each stack to simulate the interference.The resulting texel value is associatedto the point on the surface. See[4] for a detailed discussion.

Straightest geodesics on polyhedral surfaces have equal left and right angles 8, = 8, In contrast to shortest geodesics they uniquely solve the geodesic initial value problem.

The straight line property of geodesics makes them a helpful concept in the generalization of standard numerical methods to arbitrary surfaces.As an example, consider an Euler method for the integration of a vector field v on a curved surface: here one proceeds a small distance h from one point p to a next point q along the straight line with the direction of the vector field v(p) given at p. Obviously, this definition is not complete since the straight line may never again hit the surfabeand p+hv(p) usually does not lie on the surface. Therefore ambiguous projection algorithms are needed, but they are often the cause of severe problems. Instead of proceeding along a euclidean straight line one should proceed along the geodesic through p with initial direction v(p) of the vector field. Further, straightest geodesics allow the definition of parallel translation of vectors along curves which is required for higher order Runge-Kutta methods. As a consequence,these ideas lead to the generalization of Euler and other Runge-Kutta methods to arbitrary polyhedral surfacesand allow an intrinsic definition of numerical methodswhich does not need an ambient space for numerics on a manifold. We refer to technical papers[3][4]. As an application of intrinsic numerics, we study point waves on surfaces like the torus and the pretzel. When considering wave fronts as a collection of particles, the particles issued from a point on a surface move along geodesics and the wave front evolves through distance circles whose centers are the point of the origin of the wave. Remarkablesingularities of wave fronts on surfaces occur after a short period of the evolution: although a surfacemay be arbitrarily smooth, a wave front develops caustics after having surpasseda region with a certain amount of positive curvature. These singularities are the singular points of the differential of the

FURTHER INFORMATION 4. There are two ideas central in our mathematical,work: first, the application of ideas from differential geometry for the adaption of standard numerical methods to problems on arbitrary surfaces, and second, the redefinition of differential geometric terms on piecewise linear surfaces. Such discrete surfacesare heavily used in numerics and visualization, therefore it is suitable to transfer ideas from smooth geometry to discrete geometry. This reduces accuracy problems since appropriate discrete algorithms operate exactly on discrete data and there is only a small accumulation of numerical errors.Further information is available at www-sfb288.math.tu-berlin.de/-konrad/video.html including commentsto all scenesof the video. REFERENCES 5. HI A. Amez, K. Polthier, M. Steffens,C. Teitzel Touching Soup
Films / Palast der Seifenhiiute German version published by

PI [31

[41

v1

Bild der Wissenscha and Komplett Media 1995, English version published by Springer Verlag 1999,Video 41 min. M. H&l Pictures of Constant Mean Curvature Tori Video 5 min, Siggraph95Video Review. K. Polthier, M. SchmiesStraightest Geodesics on Polyhedral Surfaces in: Mathematical Visualization, H.C. Hege and K. Polthier (Eds.), pp. 135-150, Springer Verlag 1998. K. Polthier, M. Schmies Geodesic Flow on Polyhedral Surfaces to appear: Proceedings of Eurographics-IEEE Symposium on Scientific Visualization 99, Springer Verlag 1999. K. Polthier, M. Schmies, M. Steffens, C. Teitzel Geodesics and Waves Video 4:50 min, in: Siggraph97 Video Review, and in: VideoMath Festival, Springer Verlag 1998.

412