Institute for Data Analysis and Visualization

Given a set of points, and normals on a surface and triangulation associated with them a simple scheme for approximating the principal curvatures at these points is developed. The approximation is based on the fact that a surface can locally be represented as the graph of a bivariate function. Quadratic polynomials are used for this local approximation. The principal curvatures at the point on the graph of such a quadratic polynomial is used as the approximation of the principal curvatures at the original surface point.