KSpheres - an efficient algorithm for joining skinning surfaces

Besides classical point based surface design, sphere based creation of characters and other surfaces has been introduced by some of the recently developed modeling tools in computer graphics. ZSpheres® by Pixologic, or Spore™ by Electronic Arts are just two prominent examples of these softwares. In this paper we introduce a new sphere based modeling tool, which allows us to create smooth, tubular-like surfaces by skinning a user-defined set of spheres. The main advantage of the new method is to provide a parametric surface with more natural and smoother shape, especially at the connection of branches than the surfaces provided by the existing softwares and methods.