Patent ID: 8711150

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: obtaining a two-dimensional sketch including a two-dimensional internal constraint curve as an input patch; deactivating the internal constraint curve; inflating the surface of the patch to generate a three-dimensional surface according to one or more active constraints of the input patch, wherein said inflating the surface changes the deactivated internal constraint curve from a flat two-dimensional curve into a three-dimensional space curve on the three-dimensional surface, and wherein the deactivated internal constraint curve does not affect said inflating the surface of the patch, wherein said inflating the surface of the patch further comprises: tessellating the surface of the input patch to generate an initial tessellated surface by generating ghost vertices to complete one-ring neighborhoods of boundary vertices of a boundary of the initial tessellated surface; specifying a surface normal constraint value at one or more of the boundary vertices of the initial tessellated surface; and inflating the initial tessellated surface according to the specified surface normal constraint values at the one or more boundary vertices while maintaining the boundary to generate an inflated surface that provides a three-dimensional geometric effect; and during or after the inflating the surface of the patch, reactivating the deactivated internal constraint curve without affecting the surface of the patch.