A second order geometric method for ray/parametric surface intersection

Abstract

In this paper, a new method for computing intersection between a ray and a parametric surface is proposed, which finds many applications in computer graphics, robotics and geometric modeling. The method uses the second order derivative of the surface, which can handle inherent problems that Newton–Raphson and Halley methods have such as instability caused by inappropriate initial conditions and tangential intersection. Case examples are presented to demonstrate the capability of the proposed method.