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A plane curve with non-vanishing curvature has zero torsion at all points. Conversely, if the torsion of a regular curve with non-vanishing curvature is identically zero, then this curve belongs to a fixed plane. The curvature and the torsion of a helix are constant. Conversely, any space curve whose curvature and torsion are both constant and ...
The graph on the right illustrates an Euler spiral used as an easement (transition) curve between two given curves, in this case a straight line (the negative x axis) and a circle. The spiral starts at the origin in the positive x direction and gradually turns anticlockwise to osculate the circle.
Thus, it enables one to calculate the lengths of curves on the surface and the areas of regions on the surface. The line element ds may be expressed in terms of the coefficients of the first fundamental form as d s 2 = E d u 2 + 2 F d u d v + G d v 2 . {\displaystyle ds^{2}=E\,du^{2}+2F\,du\,dv+G\,dv^{2}\,.}
The normal curvature, k n, is the curvature of the curve projected onto the plane containing the curve's tangent T and the surface normal u; the geodesic curvature, k g, is the curvature of the curve projected onto the surface's tangent plane; and the geodesic torsion (or relative torsion), τ r, measures the rate of change of the surface ...
The Gaussian curvature K = κ 1 κ 2 and the mean curvature H = (κ 1 + κ 2)/2 can be computed as follows: =, = + (). Up to a sign, these quantities are independent of the parametrization used, and hence form important tools for analysing the geometry of the surface.
When a line of curvature has a local extremum of the same principal curvature then the curve has a ridge point. These ridge points form curves on the surface called ridges. The ridge curves pass through the umbilics. For the star pattern either 3 or 1 ridge line pass through the umbilic, for the monstar and lemon only one ridge passes through. [3]
Alternatively, the sectional curvature can be characterized by the circumference of small circles. Let be a two-dimensional plane in .Let () for sufficiently small > denote the image under the exponential map at of the unit circle in , and let () denote the length of ().
However, the implicit function theorem gives conditions under which an implicit curve locally is given by the graph of a function (so in particular it has no self-intersections). If the defining relations are sufficiently smooth then, in such regions, implicit curves have well defined slopes, tangent lines, normal vectors, and curvature.