The Double Locus Surface of the Minimax Sphere Eversion.

Abstract

Consider the set of double points of a closed surface immersed in 3-space. In general, this double-locus consists of a finite set of closed curves, which self-intersect at the triple points of the surface. A regular homotopy of the surface produces a homotopy of the double-locus. Generically, the curves in the double locus move across themselves and each other, or recombine like the level set of a saddle. Collectively, the stages of the double-locus homotopy may be regarded as 3-dimensional crosssections of a surface located in 4-space. This project visualizes the double-locus surface of the minimax sphere eversion.

Authors

George Francis and Chris Hartman, with Alexei Bourd, Glenn Chappell, John Sullivan, Ken Brakke, Rob Kusner and Francois Apery.

Disclaimer

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Introduction

During June and July of 1996, Chris Hartman created a set of real-time interactive computer animation (rtica) tools for the visualization of the double-locus surface (dls) of the minimax sphere eversion (ivert). For this he modified the following rticas. These were previously developed and used for other purposes. All files are listed by the proper name of the project, followed by the nickname(s). All source code (e.g. rtica.c) is in C/gl. The console binary is then written rtica.x to distinguish if from the CAVE executable, rtica.cave or rtica.mute, for example. These are the new rtica, filters and display lists. When possible, they are listed in the context of their usage.
  1. iris%vn.x -d -f movie calculates the file
  2. movie.dl, which is automatically read in when
  3. iris% vn.x -f movie is entered.
  4. half2whole.x converts movie.dl to longmovie.dl.
  5. dl2oe.x converts movie.dl to movie.oe.
  6. dl2oe2x converts movie.dl to movie.oe2.
  7. dl2oebis.xalso converts movie.dl to movie.oe2.
  8. iris% dl.x -f movie.oe2 ``doublelocus'' reads ``orderededge'' files.
  9. dl2sps.x converts movie.dl to to object.sps files.
  10. iris% ilevel.x surface.sps splines patch lists in .sps format.
  11. sps24off.x converts an object.sps into an object.4off.
  12. iris%slice.x saddle.4off to view objects.4off.

History of the Problem

The Minimax Sphere Eversion

The Double Locus

The standard illiVert viewer, still called vn.x, now also computes (with the -d option) an unordered list of facets which intersect other facets for each tope in any sequence of topes, for example movie35. It also appends to the movie.dl file the unordered list of edges in the double locus.

It can do that to a stream of topes coming over the net from a remote translator. (Recall that the translator can either transmit topes coming from the evolver or read them from a stored file named rc35.savepipe, for example.) Or, with the -f option, vn.x reads both the movie and the list movie.dl of facets neighboring the double locus. Use the (L)key to cycle through the whole eversion, the eversion of a regular neighborhood of the double locus, or its complement.

In order to isolate the curves making up the double locus, the filter dl2oe.x orders the edges of the double locus, dl2oe2.x recomputes the 100 vertices on each cycle proportional to arclengh. The third filter, dl2oe2bis.x does a little better, by making sure each cycle in the double locus has the same number of vertices (except a the saddle levels.)

The rtical dl.x is designed to read and explore the .oe lists. It is depth cued and may need to be adjusted to the particular hardware it is running on. Only the movie.oe2 file created by dl2oe2bis.x applied to the particular double locus of the movie35 eversion is fully successful in computing proper adjacency of vertices in successive levels.

At any event, the fourth filter, dl2sps.x, a modification of dl2oe2bis.x, produces the correct format for the patch splining rtica, ilevel.x Thus, the other filters are not necessary if all you want is an object defined by a stack of cycles of vertices along 3-D cross sections of a surface in 4-D.

The splining tool, ilevel.x, knits together the curves into a surface suitable for viewing with the illiSlice rtica, slice.x.

The Saddle Ribbons

Last edited 21jul96 by gkf.