Discretizing double curved surface using shadow contours

A double-curved surface has curvature in two directions simultaneously—both along and across the surface. Examples include spheres, saddles, hyperboloids, and freeform surfaces in architecture.

  • Unlike flat surfaces (zero curvature) or singly curved surfaces (like cylinders, which bend in one direction only), double curvature cannot be flattened onto a plane without distortion.

  • This means standard materials like sheet metal, glass, or plywood can’t conform to them easily without cutting, stretching, or bending in multiple directions.

We investigated ways to discretize a double curve form by producing a ruled shape from one of its directrices, intersecting it with the original form along a proper axis to extract a series of “shadows” along the surface’s generatrix.

This new form not only produced developable surfaces within very small tolerances, but it also resulted in a unique aesthetic.

Next

Street Network Analysis of EDSA