Abstract
This paper describes a hybrid surface-based method for smooth 3D surface approximation to a sequence of 2D cross sections. The resulting surface is a hybrid G $^{1}$ surface represented by a mesh of triangular and rectangular Bezier patches defined on skinning, branching, or capping regions. Each skinning region is approximated with a closed B_spline surface, which is transformed into a mesh of Bezier patches. Triangular G $^{1}$ surfaces are constructed over brabching and capping regions such that the transitions between each capping regions such that the transitions between each triangular surface and its neighboring skinning surfaces are G $^{1}$ continuous. Since each skinning region is represented by an approximated rectangular C $^{2}$ suface instead of an interpolated trctangular G $^{[-1000]}$ surface, the proposed method can provide more smooth surfaces and realize more efficient data reduction than triangular surfacebased method.