Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/geometric-modelling/1/f/solution

Choose a circular fillet that removes the sharp convex tip at . The unit directions from toward and are and . Therefore the prescribed tangent points are
The circle centre lies on the normal line to through , so . Its radius to must be perpendicular to , whose direction vector is . Thus
Consequently
Indeed . The interior angle is , and the same radius follows from . The selected circular arc runs from to through angles around :
The circular arc facing is the rounding; the complementary arc is not part of the boundary.
Define the disk and a half-plane through the chord by
Both satisfy , and . The clipping half-space retains the part away from , while the disk restores the rounded cap. The required local constructive solid geometry tree is
Only the portion of on the side of can be removed. To see the locality, is negative at every original vertex of a polygon except , and vanishes on the two adjacent sides exactly at . In the resulting triangle , the disk keeps the curved cap next to and discards the tip at . A global set intersection with alone would destroy most of the seat. The outward normal vector on the new boundary is ; at it has the same direction as the outward normal vectors of .
Figure 1.
Circular fillet at the sharp corner, tangent radii, chord clipping line, and local union subtree
. Details.
The tangent constraints alone do not insist on a circle; other conic sections can give different bulges. For example, a positive-weight rational quadratic Bézier curve with handles has the required tangent directions:
Varying changes the bulge while fixing the tangent points; the circular choice has . Once a circular fillet and these two tangent points are chosen, its centre and radius have no remaining freedom. The half-plane sign and arc selection are also essential: reversing them chooses a different retained region. This construction gives matching tangent directions, or first-order geometric continuity, at ; the curvature jumps from zero on each straight side to on the circle.

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