GPU Pro 7

2

I

Catmull-Clark

Subdivision Surfaces

Wade Brainerd

2.1 Introduction

Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces, or SubDs, are smooth surfaces defined by

bicubic B-spline patches extracted from a recursively subdivided control mesh of

arbitrary topology [Catmull and Clark 78]. SubDs are widely used in animated

film production and have recently been used in games [Brainerd 14]. They are

valued for their intuitive authoring tools and the quality of the resultant surface

(Figure 2.1).

In recent years, research has advanced rapidly with respect to rendering subdi-

vision surfaces on modern GPUs. Stanford University’s survey [Nießner et al. ar]

gives a comprehensive