Shape characterization of subdivision surfaces—basic principles Original Research Article

We provide asymptotic expansions for the fundamental forms, the Weingarten map, the principal curvatures, and the principal directions of surfaces generated by linear stationary subdivision schemes. Further, we define the central surface. The central surface is a spline ring that captures basic shape properties of the surface in the vicinity of an extraordinary vertex. Relating the shape properties to the spectrum of the subdivision matrix via the discrete Fourier transform yields conditions for the construction of high-quality subdivision schemes. In particular, the subsub-dominant eigenvalue should be triple and correspond to the Fourier blocks with indices 0,2 and n−2 of the subdivision matrix.